Tournament Armoured Hero Battle Remix
by vikung-fu
Summary: At the end of all time, a stranger in the wilderness finds himself an unlikely target. We're all in lockdown, so we not start this up again? A loving homage to DJ Diddy Dog's Tournament Kamen Rider; now accepting new OCs with a cosmic/Metal Hero theme. Come chat in the Esther Greenwood discord server and/or send a PM.
1. Chapter 1

**Marked for Death**

It was warm, the scent of summer still lingering, the memory of someone he once was. In shrill voices, he heard the cicadas crying, calling out to one another in loneliness, and he lifted his head, staring at his reflection in the broken mirror.

How long had it been, a hundred years, maybe more? How long had it been since von Shockä's lackeys had torn him apart, reconstructed him in the likeness of this thing, this monstrous locust that could not die? How long since his fateful journey to Castle Damurung, the hideous truth behind Baron von Shockä's obscene experimentation?

Blue eyes met his gaze. The face had not changed in all that time, and yet inside, he was anything but human, a monster cursed to live alone in this place, this desolate arena, this place of spilt blood and cursed memories.

Hastily, he turned away, tired of remembering. How many times could he relive the past, how many years could he waste away re-treading those fateful events. If he had once had a name, then he could no longer remember it. When the _Sicherunggruppe_ had reconstructed him with their dark magic and sharpened scalpels, they had called him Herr Heuschrecke, and for the last one-hundred years, maybe more, that is who he had been, unwilling to remember what had occurred before that, unwilling to think on the life before that, his gold-red scarf about his neck in the chill of winter, her hand in his—

No more thoughts. Not now. Not ever. His life was the arena of this dead world now. Anything before… was gone.

Running a hand through the locks of his soft, blond hair, he reached down and picked up his tattered greatcoat from where he had tossed it upon the floor the night before, throwing it over his shoulders, not bothering to slip his arms into the sleeves. Here, in the shadow of the world that he had once belonged to, there was seldom chance for rest, for though sporadically populated, when opponents were chosen, they often came in waves.

He was the oldest survivor of the arena at this point, his days within that place stretching back to the fall of Castle Damurung in his own personal past. For the first few years, he had imagined himself in Hell, had believed this place to be some distant outpost of the final resting place of the damned, and whilst there were often as many dead as there were living in this place, the man that the Sicherunggruppe named Heuschrecke was the oldest, his good fortune having held out even during the many beatings he had received. Nothing had happened here, in this dark netherworld, that he had not been able to crawl away from; every battle he had fought in this place, he had survived, he had learnt from, he had grown stronger from.

As for the nature of the world, that was something he did not understand. Despite the vast length in which he had resided in that realm, he could not confess knowledge of it. In many ways, it was much like the Earth he remembered, whilst in others, it was radically different. As with the world he dimly recalled, there were non-combatants here, those not involved in the conflict, and, whenever encountered, he tried to avoid drawing them into the violence. Not that such was always a possibility.

Bunching the collar of his coat up with his fist, he bowed his head and passed through the emptiness of the old industrial district. There had been occasions when it had not been possible to prevent harm to those who knew nothing of the arena's true nature. He did not relish such memories, nor did he take responsibility for what had occurred. In this place, the same as any other, people perished, it was impossible to pretend otherwise.

Unlike the world he remembered, the arena was a place of dreadful noise the rival of any canon on the battlefield. Now and then, when he could stomach it, he thought back on what he could recall of the world he had known before the Great War; on the vast rolling fields, on the omnibuses that had carried crowds from the city to the shore. He thought once more of the past and then, again, dismissed it, trying not to dwell on what could never be again.

Even if it was possible to return from the arena, the Great War had changed everything, torn apart the world he had once known. There was no England for him to go home to, not the England he once knew, and although, in his darkest moments, he might still recall the shape of her, tears spilling from her large, blue eyes and running in warm trails down her pale cheeks as she reached out for him, the woman she might have grown to be after the Sicherunggruppe had had their way with him was not someone he had ever known.

I won't forget you, he had said to her, his hand falling away as she reached out, their fingertips brushing against one another; I'll be back soon, he had said to her.

It was for the best. Better that she had never known him, better that she had never witnessed the hideous armour that came forth at the bidding of the jumble of curses that spilt from his lips.

Head bowed, he became conscious of the fact that someone was watching him, standing a short distance behind him, their eyes moving in accordance with his weary steps.

"I've been waiting for you," a voice called out, full of authority, full of command.

He sighed, and, regretfully, he turned.

Standing rigid and to attention, his arms folded across his chest, was a tall man in a black uniform, his hair swept back from his high forehead and roman nose, his eyes dark and critical; a military man, he realised, a soldier, much like him.

He exhaled air slowly.

"You have found me," he said with cautious patience.

The other man uncrossed his arms.

"As it would seem."

There was silence between them for a moment.

"We don't need to do this," he called to the other, "there are other ways. You can survive in the arena without fighting."

The soldier looked at him, his expression unreadable yet his silence indicating that perhaps he was considering this.

He nodded.

"Noted. Unfortunately, I have comrades I must return to."

He who had once been Heuschrecke answered with an inclination of his own head.

"That must be nice," he said softly, sadly.

The other soldier offered no response, instead reaching to his belt and detaching a small device no bigger than the palm of his hand. Flipping it open, he dialled in the three-digit access code with his thumb.

The spirit gage on the device's display blinked ceaselessly, indicating the full charge stored within the technology. Carefully, lifting it to his ear, he spoke three simple words:

"Lorica laminata… _engage_!"

Particles of energy cauterised in the air about him, rushing to one another to form sheets of divine metal, armour burning its way into existence from the gaps between unseen realities. He spread his arms wide and the sheets of metal converged upon him, twisting about his limbs and locking into place until his entire body was clad in a featureless suit of perfect, matte red armour.

Heuschrecke stood silent, unmoving for a moment, regarding the formless majesty of this other's armour, the beauty with which it was summoned, and then, with resignation, nodded sadly, lowering his arms, crossing them at his waist.

"_Henshin_," he said quietly.

Beneath the rags of his clothes, pale flesh began to bubble and erupt in sores.

x

She stood at the window, hands folded behind her back, the long sleeves of the charcoal jacket she wore, several sizes too large for her, hiding the soft skin of her hands completely. In the glass of the window, superimposed over the spires of the sprawling city below, her reflection gazed back at her, cold, grey eyes betraying nothing.

She sensed the presence of the door opening before it occurred, sensed the presence of the tall man, her servant, as he stood hesitantly at the threshold, uncertain if he should disturb her. Unseen, she smiled imperceptibly. In this world, she sensed everything, ordained everything, defined the parameters of its function, established the rules by which it operated—at least until recently, she had.

At the door, her servant coughed softly, gently, a polite attempt to attract her attention.

"Speak, Kurogane," she commanded but did not turn, "I welcome your news."

The man on the threshold hesitated still, and she turned with impatience to regard him, lifting a sleeve and brushing the fringe of ash white hair from her cold eyes.

Kurogane, tall, handsome even, dressed archaically in both a weighty travelling cloak and the uniform of the Intergalactic Criminal Police Organisation of the 31st century, black polyvinyl, sheer membrane and aged borametz leaf, dropped hastily to one knee.

"Your majesty," he said, his gaze lowered from hers, "we have sighted three individuals not in accordance of your wishes in the domain."

She raised an eyebrow, smiling playfully.

"Have you knowledge of my accordance before I do now, Kurogane?" she asked, stepping forward, her baseball boots screeching on the wooden tiles of the floor.

She was no taller than a child, no older in looks than a girl, 13 or 14 at best, and yet the aura that emanated from her presence was impossible, a presence like no other living thing.

"N-No, great Authoress," Kurogane cried with sudden fear. "Please forgive me my presumption."

A warmness filled her express as she approached.

She had found the abandoned officer drifting in the æther between worlds, written out of his native timeline by a shift in reality, a king upon a throne of golden light disposing of all those who had challenged him. From the void, she had breathed life into him once more, bequeathed him impossible powers with which to police her domain.

"Continue," she said as she approached, "I am not interested in apologies."

His head remained bowed.

"Three interlopers have been recorded within the arena. My men were not informed of their arrival. Please, your majesty, could you verify your wishes in this matter."

She did not let her smile slip. This situation was becoming an issue however, the number of uninvited guests reaching her realm from across the dimensions worrying her. It would not matter if they were suited to the story she weaved, she thought, but this strange new pattern of erratic and anarchic individuals complicated things for her in ways that she did not savour.

It was impossible for her to admit in front of one such as Kurogane that she had not planned for this, and yet, at the same time, if she pretended their presence was intended, what hope would he have in the craft of storytelling; what kind of creator would he consider her, one who might suddenly introduce such random characters at whim.

She reached out and placed her hands on his shoulders, the sunlight of the early morning illuminating the countless tattoos that covered her hands, running all the way up to her shoulders.

"Lift your head," she commanded, and hastily he did so yet shied away still from looking her in the eye. "These characters are a dead end, a subplot I was planning on developing and have since abandoned. Please see to it that they are deleted as soon as possible."

She withdrew her touch and stepped backwards, gesturing at him to rise.

Cautiously, Kurogane Weiss rose up to his full height, towering above the child-like stature of his mistress.

"Transform," she ordered him, and he nodded unquestioningly, drawing from within the folds of his outer cloak two simple cartridges of clear plastic and wrought iron, one white, one black.

Without hesitation, he threw back his cloak and drove the cartridges down into the belt at his waist, exciting the mechanism at his core and stirring it into life, a rasping voice resounding from its built-in computer:

'_Lilith_! _Samael_! _Death Match_!'

A wave of darkness washed over his form, the stench of brimstone, of sulphur radiating from him as his gentle face was consumed by a fresh uniform of obsidian black and bleached bone, swollen eyes protruding from the helm like some ancient, unknowable creature from the depths of some sickly ocean.

'_Armoured Hero Crass-Reaper Reborn_.'

She looked at him for a moment, looked at the blackened armour, the decorative corpse-paint beneath the eyes of the mask, and then, contentedly, she nodded and turned away.

"Do not disturb me again until your business is conducted," she commanded, and, with the squeak of her shoes again upon the wooden tiles, she returned to her morning vigil at the window, her eyes gazing out over the lonely city below.


	2. Chapter 2

**Exercises in Futility**

What was he fighting for, he asked himself; what was the reason for going on? All these wasted years, all these endless battles and he kept pushing himself, keep fighting against every opponent the world threw at him. Would it not be better to give in, he asked himself; would it not be better to abandon the fight?

Beneath the shifting shape of his mask, he clenched his teeth. Hadn't he rallied against life in those early days, traipsing through the mud and the dirt of the front, dragging his shattered form across the endless battlefields, through the wild forests and the empty towns, putting down his foes whenever they blocked his way—Spinne-Mann, Fledermaus-Mann. Skorpion-Mann. What was the point in carrying on, what was the point in fighting any further?

A terrible thought crossed his mind. He should just let this other man defeat him, he should just give up, accept that there was no escaping this dead world, that, in this place, only death was real.

And yet he could not; despite himself, he could not give up the fight so readily.

Deftly, he sidestepped, narrowly avoiding the thrust of his opponent's punch. Inside, he felt the confusion and anger of the armour he wore, its essence almost alive, the shape of it almost like flesh. He had long since learned to reconcile himself to the horror of what had been done to him by the Sicherunggruppe, and yet, even after all these years, every now and then, Heuschrecke feared that the sickly armour that encompassed him when summoned was alive in some fashion independent of his own existence.

He sidestepped once more, the other relentless in his assault, driving him back with a series of punches that afforded him no chance to think, no chance to coordinate his own attack, and despite coming across as a bruiser, Heuschrecke realised that the other man was controlling his movements precisely.

He threw up his forearm, blocking a punch and catching hold of the other's arm as it came swinging in from the left.

"How did you find out about me?" he asked, feeling the seething flesh of his armour twisting into a snarl.

When von Shockä's surgeons had performed their work on him, they had believed that they were creating the perfect being, a reflection of how man had been at the beginning of all things, before the Garden, before the Fall. What they had fashioned instead was monstrous in appearance, a foul creature more akin to an ambling human-locust than any actual measure of perfection. The armour itself, if such it could be called in contrast to that of his opponent, was little more than cancerous tissue, tumours that expanded and contracted at will, washing over him from the knot of bound hair, the rotting _trichobezoar_ that they had buried in his stomach.

The other soldier wrenched free and took a step back and yet did not resume his attack.

"I-I don't know," he confessed with discomfort. "I know that I have to defeat you if I want to return."

Heuschrecke nodded.

"We all remember that. When I stumbled into this place, I knew that there was someone I had to defeat in order to escape."

The soldier in the red armour hesitated.

"And you never found him?"

Sadly, Heuschrecke shook his head.

"I found him. He was an old man, his armour worn down by years of usage. It looked as if he had been living in it."

He was silent for a moment, unable to turn away from his opponent and yet the urge to fight fading within him.

"His name was Cyclone Ranger. I killed him with my bare hands."

The dust stirred on the ground between them.

"And yet you're still here?"

Again, Heuschrecke nodded.

"After him, there was another, and after that, another. I don't remember their names. It was a series of unending battles, and every time I thought maybe this would be the victory that would earn me passage off this dead world." A hollow laugh escaped his lips. "And yet here I am. Still."

Reaching down, he crossed his arms at his waist once more, this time in reverse, and, without warning, his putrid bio-armour receded into nothingness, peeling away to reveal his tired features, his bare chest, the sodden bandages that wrapped his arms, the aged greatcoat he wore over his shoulders.

"Perhaps there is no way out," he said softly, "perhaps this world is an illusion and the only escape is…"

His voice trailed off, incapable of saying what he meant.

Was this really true? After all this time, was he really willing to give up his life, to abandon his fate to this man he had just met, the first opponent he had encountered in so, so long.

"I'm sorry," the other answered. "I believe you. And yet I have to know. If there is a way to return to those who are waiting for me, then I have to try that, and if that means defeating you, then so be it."

He straightened up, somehow resplendent in the matte red armour he wore.

"My name is Flavius Furius Aquila," he announced, "in my time, I was a centurion of some small repute. Now, I am just a soldier trying to find his way back to his comrades."

Heuschrecke nodded and closed his eyes.

"Thank you," he said softly, "for trusting me with your name."

The wind stirred between them once more and he sensed rather than the saw the impending fist flying towards him.

x

"Hey kid!" he called into the distance. "Hey kid, are you lost?"

Across the edge of the quarry, he could see her clearly, a child in school uniform, long dark hair and a leather briefcase that looked as if it had seen better days.

"What's a kid doing out here?" he asked himself with a grimace, and then added, "Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, Genki. That's right. And answering yourself is the second sign."

He smiled at his own joke and then began to jog slowly around the edge of the pit, moving patiently towards the edge where she stood peering at something on her wrist, a watch maybe, something like that, he thought. At age 24, it had been a long time since Tamashii Genki had found himself in a situation like this, his scarf loose about his neck, his guitar heavy on his back as he approached. More than a handful of years out of university, his time at Jack Ryder's armoured hero academy cut short by its closure and the terrible tragedy that had occurred then.

Grimly, he remembered watching as Erik Caine had torn through Towerhacker Stadium, his Stardust Sabre clashing with the silver blade of his opponent's épée, watching as the very stadium had trembled.

He remembered the look on Caine's face as he realised what he had done, as the blade shredded the armour of Ryker's son, as the stadium crumbled and the buildings fell.

Those had not been good days, he had been 18-years-old, and, like any 18-year-old, he had bounced back from it, going solo despite the heavy restrictions placed on armoured heroes shortly after the tragedy. There had been too many rogue agents such as Ryusei Long still prowling the country, the government had argued when talking of greater legislation; too much power had been received by those without the sense or compassion to use the armour they inherited or constructed.

Six years after the tragedy and there had been hardly any of those heroes the students of the academy hoped to emulate left; six years and Tamashii Genki had found himself drawn into another mystery.

"Hey, kid," he said drawing up to the child, resting his hands on his knees and letting out a breath. "Hey, kid, you're the first person I've seen all day. You have any idea where this place is?"

He remembered driving through the night, remembered the cold fog that had washed over him, leaving beads on condensation on the visor of his motorcycle helmet, but after that there was nothing, a blank space in his memory, as if he had slipped over into another place, another dimension—a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind, like that old TV show used to say, he thought, and then paused, trying to remember if that had been _The Twilight Zone_ or _The Outer Limits_.

Not, of course, that such things were unusual. He found his bike took him wherever it wanted nowadays, sometimes almost as if it had a mind of its own, as if it was following a path. Whatever was different about the worlds he visited, one thing remained the same: there was always someone who needed his help. Maybe in this world, this young girl was just such a person—or maybe she was someone who would lead him to that person. Whatever the case, he couldn't pass up the chance for a conversation with an actual human being. It felt as if he had been walking around all morning and all he had seen were empty quarries and abandoned industrial areas, a sight that reminded him of the time he had found himself idly looking up something or other about the Kuril Islands and come away with more knowledge than he had really needed.

The young girl turned to him, straight dark hair, her eyebrows slightly unkempt, a small white button badge with a question mark appended to the right strap of her pinafore.

"What's your name, kid?" Genki asked, slightly unsettled by the sternness of her gaze.

"Joan," she answered softly, the faint suggestion of a Scottish accent characterising her words. "Joan Smith."

She lifted her arm to show the watch bound to her wrist by a thin leather strap, its display flickering, a sudden projection of the ten planets of the solar system springing up in three dimensions, rotating slowly from the small blue-green orb where they resided to far distant Planet X as it crawled its way back into the orbit of the sun.

Genki blinked in surprise.

"Young man," the girl said in a tone that was deadly serious, "I have the terrible feeling that we are not where we should be."

x

"This place is awful." He paused, cupping his hands to light a cigarette and then shaking the match free. "Where did you say it was, again?"

The wind caught the hem of his aged trench coat, faded beige, tartan lining, fashionable at one point but now, like the white shirt and black suit trowsers he wore, the brown leather brogues, tired and old.

Ahead of him, the young man with the mass of bleached hair looked out over the shifting fog that seemed to extend for miles before them, his oversized black jumper threadbare and shapeless, his tartan bondage trowsers decorated with safety pins.

Funny, he thought, when first he had met Kazama Ryunosuke 12-years ago, he had seemed so much more straight-laced. Not, of course, that the boy had changed physically, discounting the constant change of hair colour. He remembered Kazama's pink phase, then the blue phase, then a strawberry red phase, and countless others, and, if it wasn't for the fact that he knew the boy to be inhabiting a simulacrum of human likeness then perhaps Punk Rocket, now well into his mid-40s, would had felt slightly jealous about the other's almost eternal youth.

"Oi, are you even listening to me?" he called out to the boy, a stream of pale blue smoke billowing from his nostrils.

Sweeping his coat back and digging his hands into his pockets, he strode over to where Kazama stood on the soft grass, still damp with morning dew.

"Come on then," he said, giving the boy a playful punch in the shoulder, "spill the beans."

To think that, when they first met, Kazama had trashed his favourite ax. Now look at them, he thought, and smiled goofily.

"It's a Fictionspehre," Kazama remarked without turning to look at his travelling companion.

Rocket snorted with displeasure.

"What the bloody hell is one of them when it's at home?" he asked.

Kazama sighed loudly.

"It's a thing that the leftover gods of the Prometheans used to make, a bottle universe outside of the usual flow of time, a place where they could test out their stories."

"Stories?" Rocket asked, arching an eyebrow.

Kazama nodded.

"Stories," he reiterated. "Those old gods used to think of all reality as a narrative, these little Fictionspheres were where they would withdraw to test out possibilities, introduce new characters."

Punk Rocket scowled darkly.

"Life's not a story, that's nonsense."

"Tell that to those old gods," Kazama said with a shrug.

In the distance, there was the faint sound of a motorcycle engine, a low rumble that grew slowly louder, until, at last, in the distance, a figure in black leather upon an old Suzuki T20 could be seen visibly parting the fog.

"That one of your old gods, you think?" Rocket asked with hesitation.

Kazama shook his head, reaching into a pocket and drawing forth a humble tuning fork, its handle carved in the likeness of a skull.

"Somehow, I don't think so," he answered softly.

Patiently, he tapped the fork against his thigh and lifted it to his forehead—and was abruptly thrown forward as something struck him on the back of the head, the fork tumbling from his hand and landing on the grass with a thud.

With a growl, he turned to see a surreal plant creature composed of vines and blossoms dressed in the likeness of what appeared to be a cheap Hallowe'en witch's costume, its roots wrapped about a battered old skateboard.

Punk Rocket took another drag on his cigarette.

"I've got this one," he said, "you go find out if that chap on the bike is friend or foe."

Without pause, he stepped forward, squaring up to the plant monster and stubbing his cigarette out in what should have been its face, the foliage blistering and burning, the shape of the creature recoiling.

Kazama Ryunosuke smiled to himself at the absurdity of his friend's offensive against their new challenger, and then, reaching down for the tuning fork, he prepared himself for the arrival of the masked man on the motorcycle.

x

There was a sudden flash, his eyes opening as the fist sailed towards his face, as the sickening armour of his tumours vomited forth from his pores, enveloping him, swallowing whole the fist, twisting, shattering, _breaking_.

Flavius Furius Aquila screamed in alarm from behind his mask as the head of the old soldier tried to eat his hand, breaking the bones, dissolving the armour, crawling forth from the solemn other's mask and climbing its way up his forearm, shredding his armour, peeling back the flesh as it went.

From within the mass of swollen tissue, Heuschrecke stood still, immobile, even as Aquila struggled, crying out in ancient curses, trying to wrench his arm free from the spreading mass of the other's armour.

The perfect being, the Sicherunggruppe had called him, a reflection of how man had been at the beginning of all things. And yet, all he was, at the end of the hundred years or so since the end of the war, since he had wondered through the mist and fog of what was left of Europe, was a locust, devouring everything he came into contact with.

When he had told Aquila that he had killed Cyclone Ranger and those that followed him with his bare hands, it had been something of an untruth. He had certainly laid his hands upon those opponents he had faced in the early days of the arena, but, after that, he had let his armour do the rest, the tumours of its gangrenous, cancerous shape blossoming out from him, eating alive those who struggled against him.

Heuschrecke, like his namesake, had survived by eating his foes.

Screaming now in real panic, Aquila tried to pull his arm back, the sickening sound of flesh twisting, of sinews tearing suddenly filling the air between them. He tried not to listen to, chusing to focus on the screams. He had long since learnt that it was easier to listen to the screams; if he listened to the sounds coming out of their mouths, then he didn't have to focus on the noises the rest of their bodies made.

He closed his eyes—and then felt a tremendous pain as the extended flesh of his mask was severed, torn away from the flesh it was anchored to, taking with it the remnants of Aquila's arm.

Swiftly, his eyes snapped open, his face visible for a moment in the gaping hole left by the severance of the extra limb, and then, moments later, new flesh regrew, swollen insect eyes and pulsating green flesh hiding the soft frame of his human form.

Before him, Flavius Furius Aquila stood, hunched over, clutching his left shoulder and the ruined remnants of his arm, the extrusion of Heuschrecke's mask seething and wriggling on the ground still, the remainder of Aquila's arm still within it.

He turned his attention from the wounded soldier to a third man, young, his expression full of cold contempt, a sword outstretched before, its hilt a steel case of some kind. At his hip, his left hand rested upon a holstered gun of some unknown design, he noted, and his costume was unusual, a trailing coat decorated by flames, loose trowsers and heavy work boots, his dark hair unkempt, his eyes wild.

"Sorry for breaking up your fun, boys," he smirked, and, for the faintest moment, Heuschrecke thought he caught sight of fangs in the boy's mouth.

Conscious of Aquila's laboured breathing, of the fact that this new challenger had witnessed the secret of his monstrous armour before he had been ready to reveal it, he remained tense, uncertain of how to react, the flesh that covered him writhing in anxiety.

The boy, 19-years-old maybe, Heuschrecke estimated, looked from him to Aquila and smirked.

"Yeah," he said, "I think I get the gist of what was happening here."

Before the old soldier could react, the boy's hand was on the gun, his finger around the trigger.

* * *

**A/N: ****Genki Tamashii created by Rider09 ~ ** u/1938693

**Punk Rocket and Ryunosuke "Ryan" Kazama created by Kamen Rider Chrome ~ ** u/676659

**Zackery Masayoshi Orion created by Lewamus Prime 2019 ~ ** u/6878339


	3. Chapter 3

**Bleeding in the Blur**

Three forms shimmered into existence, a blur of primary colours shifting into physical shapes, drawn from whatever world they had once inhabited, their likenesses now used as familiars of this young man with the trailing coat, his gun outstretched in Heuschrecke's direction.

Dressed in immaculately white armour seemingly untouched by age or use, he recognised the other as someone he had already defeated, someone his armour had already consumed.

"_Dreamcaster_," he murmured, his eyes wide.

Upon the ghost's belt were holstered two weapons, a gun on the right side and the handle of a fishing rod on the left whilst, likewise the right shoulder bore the pattern of a unique blue swirl just as the left bore an orange swirl. The helmet he wore was featureless save for a wide rectangular visor decorated along the line where his eyes would have been with four round ports, each one seemingly providing the option of connecting additional devices to the mask.

"Not quite," the boy smirked as the shapes of the other two heroes coalesced before him. "This one's just my puppet, a memory I pulled out of your head. Most people don't give me this kind of material to work with. I've got to say that I'm kind of impressed."

A second armoured hero gained permanence, a shimmer of gold and red, a featureless faceplate, that legendary JumpCrystal burning at the core of the breastplate.

Heuschrecke laughed coldly.

"JumpMan," he said dryly, "another ghost."

The boy glared at him but said nothing, and all the while, Heuschrecke was aware of Aquila, redundant now, clutching the stump of his severed arm, losing blood by the moment. In a way, he felt sorry for the other soldier. Had they met on different terms, perhaps they could have been friends. Yet this place was a battlefield, and the battlefield was where soldiers came to die.

The final form shuddered into existence, and, beneath his own armour, he felt a sudden sense of foreboding. Black plate armour, a royal purple cloak draped over his shoulders, an air of dread emanating from him as he advanced, reaching back and drawing a forth a colossal sword from behind him.

"Hell calls," he growled as he advanced, "the earth cries out, the crowds roar; all calling on me to end their undeserved lives."

About him, Heuschrecke felt his armour throb and pulse, twitching as the ghost advanced, an armoured gauntlet lifted up even as he hefting up his massive buster sword.

"The fist of Divine Right," he spat, "MONARCH!"

x

The shuddering weed creature leapt back, the skateboard around which its roots had curled shattering beneath the weight of it. Beneath the peeked witch's hat, the face blistered and burnt black, peeling back to reveal further knots of vine and ivy.

"Yeah," Rocket sneered, pulling his box of matches out from the inner pocket of his aged trench coat, "that's what I thought. Monsters like you are always shit when it comes to a proper fight."

He flipped the box open with his thumb and pulled free a single match, its red phosphorous tip waiting to be struck against the dark strip on the side of the box.

"Now, I might not be an armoured hero or anything, but, even for me, putting shitbags like you in the ground is a piece of piss."

At his back, he heard the growl of the motorcycle's approach, heard the soft chime of Kazama's tuning fork as it resounded through the air. He didn't need to turn to know that the younger man was poised and ready to transform, didn't need to worry about whether the approaching masked rider proved to be friend or foe. Whatever happened, Punk Rocket knew that Kazama had his back, experience had taught him that much.

The weed witch threw its arms wide and bellowed, lifting its burnt face to the skies. What kind of world has monsters like this but no actual people, Rocket thought. That Fictionsphere business that Kazama had been talking about, he couldn't claim to understand it, but surely there had to be more than just monsters here; surely somewhere there had to people, just normal people. Maybe that's what the man on the motorcycle would reveal to them, if he proved to be a friend.

The plant monster threw itself forward, arms wide, and Punk Rocket ducked, bringing up his fist in an uppercut that caught the creature under the chin and knocked it staggering back.

"Bloody creeper weed, you should be ashamed of yourself." He stopped, laughing as he unfolded his fist, the box of matches still in the palm of his hand. "Creeper Weed. Yeah, I like that. That's what I'm going to call you from now on."

Whether the creature understood his taunts or not, Rocket could not be certain, and yet it was clear that it had understood the blow he struck it, as, with a roar, it threw itself forward once more and this time it caught him, his hands fumbling with the matches as the vines broke away from one another and wrapped around his neck.

He let out a startled gasp, the matches tumbling from his grasp as he brought his hands up to clutch at the vines that strangled him.

The sound of the motorcycle grew louder.

"Rocket?" he heard Kazama call, the tuning fork trembling in his grasp. "Rocket, you doing okay back there?"

Digging his fingers into the vines, he managed to loosen them, his nails tearing into their pulpy flesh, sap staining his hands.

"Never better," he sputtered. "Don't you mind old Punk Rocket; he can look after himself."

With a considerable effort, he tore free of the Creeper Weed's grasp, pulling the creature forward and delivering a devastating head-butt, smashing its face into dishevelled ruins even as he tore the gathered vines from the monster's shoulders.

It screeched loudly, staggered wildly, its cloak billowing around it as it tossed its head. It was then that he noticed a further figure approaching, the fog parting around him, black under-armour, silver plates on the arms and legs, orange around the chest and the mask.

From the approaching stranger's back, two vast mechanical wings spread forth, and dimly, Rocket became aware of the fact that the motorcycle had fallen silent.

The Creeper Weed tossed its head again, bellowing loudly—and abruptly, its chest exploded open, sap and pulp exploding outwards and falling to the damp grass in sickening chunks.

Punk Rocket turned around, his eyes wide, to see Kazama on his knees, his head bowed, the masked rider standing on the hand that held his tuning fork, a double-barrelled shotgun pointing out towards the felled weed witch.

With deliberate slowness, the rider reached up and unbuckled his helmet, pulling it off with one hand and throwing it to the grass at his feet.

"This is a good start," he said calmly, looking from Kazama to the stranger behind the fallen Crepper Weed. "Two intruders in the same place, that makes my job easier."

He paused, looking towards Punk Rocket.

"But you, you I wasn't expecting." He narrowed his eyes, and then shrugged. "Ah well, it doesn't matter either way, I guess."

From within his jacket, he drew two simple cartridges of clear plastic and wrought iron, one white, one black., driving them down into the belt at his waist, exciting the mechanism at his core and stirring it into life, a rasping voice resounding from its built-in computer:

'_Lilith_! _Samael_! _Death Match_!'

x

It was a short walk from the industrial estate, his bike left under a tarpaulin, camouflaged by oil drums gathered around it, but Genki was surprised to discovered that this cold world possessed cities—or, at the very least, _a_ city.

Led by the young girl, who seemed to possess some kind of preternatural knowledge of the terrain, some ability to see through the swarming mist, the churning fog, he tried to keep his anxiety in check. Perhaps it was that strange watch she wore, the one with the hologram of the solar system, he thought.

"Hey, kid," he said as he trailed along after her. "Hey kid, about that watch—"

"Did you know there is a story that Saturn once ruled the skies," Joan Smith, glancing over her shoulder up at him but not slowing her pace.

Tamashii Genki frowned.

"What like the god or the planet?"

"Yes," Joan answered.

She smiled mischievously.

"The suggestion is that the planets of the sky were once aligned in a direct row from Earth towards Saturn, its mass obscuring the sun, its surface covered in cosmic dust that made it something _like_ a sun in the ancient sky. There is a story that when the planets were knocked out of line, when there was turmoil in the solar system and the cosmos was reshaped into the one familiar to us now, that is where our stories of the end of a golden age arise from."

Genki's frown deepened.

"Uh, no, I, ah, hadn't heard that before."

"You should acquaint yourself with the details. We're going to be seeing a lot of Saturn soon."

Following her through the silent streets of the empty city, Genki suddenly became somewhat nervous.

"Hey kid," he said again, "is that who we're going to see?"

She stopped abruptly and turned to look at him with a scowl, and he stumbled, trying his hardest not to walk into her.

"The god Saturn?" she asked.

He smiled weakly and put his hand behind his head.

"Yeah."

"No. Of course not. That would be absurd."

"Oh," Genki said, still frowning. "So where are we going?"

Joan Smith turned on her heel and strode again away.

"To hire a private detective, of course!" she called back to him.

x

Punk Rocket regarded the figure before him, the blackened armour, forearms adorned with spikes, the corpsepaint that surrounded the features of the mask.

Sliding a cigarette from its pack, he struck a match and offered the armoured figure a sour glance.

"Shouldn't you be off burning churches somewhere?" he asked.

Slowly, Kurogane Weiss turned the skeletal details of his mask towards Rocket, the swollen eyes, the bone bleach paint and black smears.

"I should ask you how you found your way to this place, but I find that I do not much care."

Punk Rocket nodded with mock sincerity.

"Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting," he said with a smirk, and then let the expression of his playful mirk drop, his voice cold, his expression firm. "Now, why don't you get your foot off my friend's wrist before I stuff that shotgun right up your arse?"

Kurogane looked down at the felled form of Kazama and then up at Punk Rocket and the approaching other, and slowly he stepped back.

"I would not wish you all to think that you were at a disadvantage fighting me one by one. Come, I shall take the three of you at once."

Punk Rocket sneered.

"Said the bishop to the actress," he remarked, as he tossed his cigarette away.

"No," Kazama snarled, pulling himself up and throwing his arm wide to gesture that Rocket hold back. "I'm taking this guy down on my own."

He reached up with the tuning fork once more—yet before he could transform, the approaching figure rushed forward, dashing past and shoulder barging Kurogane, sending the ominous armoured figure staggered backwards a step or two.

Twisting the buckle of his belt, the newcomer tensed and then launched himself up into the air, silver and orange light spinning out from him like a secondary set of wings.

"Dual Impact!" he shouted, seemingly gaining mass as he closed the distance between him and Kurogane, flames igniting as both feet slammed into the other's chest once, twice, and Kurogane was thrown backwards, tearing up the ground as he tumbled away into the fog.

The other landed on the ground, and turned away, looking back at Kazama and Rocket.

"Sorry to interrupt your fight, I just thought—"

His introduction was halted by the sudden bark of Kurogane's shotgun, the weight of both explosive shells slamming into his back.

"Insolent child," Kurogane roared, striding forth from the fog.

Rocket strode forward, standing between the other figure and Kazama, his expression full of anger.

"What's your name, new kid?" Rocket asked.

"Senkai," the boy said. "Mashuto Senkai."

Rocket nodded.

"Well, Matty, old boy, I think you just bit off more than you can chew."

Kazama did not hesitate again, tapping the fork against the back of his hand, he raised it to his forehead. Flames of spirit energy ignited about his body, blistering brightly and then faded just as quickly to reveal form fitting black armour, chains trailing from a skull etched into his chest.

He turned sharply towards the newcomer.

"Senkai," he growled, "no more messing around. Follow my lead. Rocket, fall back for now. If something bad happens, you know what to do."

Punk Rocket sighed and patted his coat for his box of cigarettes.

"Yeah, yeah, I get you."

"I mean it," Kazama said. "This guy is dangerous, we need to put a stop to him as soon as possible."

Rocket shrugged and fell back a step.

"So put him in the ground already. I'll be here when you get done playing."

He smirked, lit a fresh cigarette and looked at the oncoming figure in black.

"Break a leg and all that, I guess."

x

The streets were silent, the absence of human beings striking in the calm that seemed to settle over it. Looking around at the strange contrast between towering corporate buildings ahead, empty chain coffee shops, and quaint corner shops, Genki tried to guess where in the world it was; the signs were in English, there was construction work being done in the distance, silent now and forever halted, but he couldn't quite grasp where it was. Certainly, it wasn't Japan, and yet it didn't look like America either—so somewhere in Europe then?

There was another possibility, one he didn't care for: previously, wherever his bike had taken him had been some kind of version of the world he was familiar with, yet what if this place, with its strange absence of people, was a place that did not mirror his home? What if this place was a world that never was?

Ahead of him, Joan Smith, precocious and full of self-confidence, stopped between a newsagent's and what looked like a chicken shop of sorts, one of those off-brand KFCs that Genki had spent so much of his youth in. It took him a moment to realise that she was standing before a black door, its handle in rusted bronze, a faded number pinned high above the child's head.

Without waiting, without explaining, she pushed the door and it opened, revealing a carpeted stairway that led up to a grimy, single glazed window and another flight of stairs curling upwards.

"Hey, kid," Genki called out, following her uncertainly, "are you sure this is okay? This isn't someone's house, is it?"

"It's not someone's house, no," Joan called over her shoulder as she ascended the second flight of stairs.

"I don't know about this," Genki said, shaking his head and following her up the stairs, passing the old antique portraits of strange people with long beards, their eyes following him as he passed.

What kind of a world was this, he asked himself, what kind of a city contained places such as this?

At the top of the stairs, the girl reached another black door and tapped upon it with her knuckles. Genki waited several steps down, not knowing what to expect but attempting to prepare himself for anything—and yet when the door swung inwards and he found himself gazing into an antique study, the kind often inhabited by storybook wizards, replete with bubbling cauldron, ancient books, and slender black cat, watching him with one eye open, he was forced to admit that none of this was what he was expecting.

As Joan stepped forward into the room, he caught sight of its owner, tall and stately yet dressed in a somewhat dishevelled matter, like a man who has sunk from a noble profession into one that does not adequately suit his ambitions.

There was something disconcerting about him, his movements mechanical, short, dark hair, a fringe that fell over one eye. He turned slowly towards them, ignoring Genki and focusing solely on Joan as she stood before him amongst his gatherings of books and charms.

"You're the last person I expected to see again," he said with dispassion. "You look different."

"Hello, boy," Joan said sadly in reply.

He regarded her with what, to Genki, seemed to be controlled rage.

"Hello, Nimue."

x

The blast from the shotgun shattered against Kazama's armour yet still he advanced. From Kurogane's right, Senkai leapt up from nowhere, bringing his fist down and driving it into the armoured attacker's neck even as Kazama lashed out with a roundhouse kick that caught him under the chin and drove him backwards, his jaw aching despite the armour he wore.

"Nice work," Senkai called to his new companion.

"No time for niceties," Kazama snapped as he sprinted past, pulling two carved wooden drum sticks from behind them, their tips decorated in bleached skulls.

Without pause, he lifted his arms up, bringing them down in successive strikes against Kurogane's armour, a thunderous sound echoing out as he lifted his arms again, a brutal rhythm that hammered against his foe, trapped in place by the sonorous resonance of the sound.

"_Now_!" he shouted, his voice a roar above the thundering beat.

Senaki Mashuto did not need telling twice. 25-years-old, blue hair beneath the armour flecked with orange, he had been surviving hand-to-mouth ever since he wandered through the mist onto this dead world, fighting opponent after opponent, terrified of removing his armour for fear that this place was so remote from the satellite that transported his weapons to him that he would never get it back.

Had it not been for the appearance of a spectre, a girl in school uniform with a curious button badge decorated with a question mark, then Senkai would never have known where to head next, where to find others like him; where to find a chance of escape.

Rising up in the air, he prepared himself once more, flames igniting around his body.

"Dual impact!" he shouted again, his descent like that of a blistering comet.

At the last moment, Kazama leapt back and Senkai's kick slammed hard into their opponent once more, shattering his armour, steam pouring from his torn leather jacket.

In the warm grass, Senkai landed behind him, turning to see his felled opponent staring down at his bleeding hands, the shotgun resting before him in the dirt.

"I-I lost?" he murmured softly to himself.

"Now I want some answers," Senkai said as he marched back towards Kurogane.

"We all want answers," Kazama growled, "wait your turn."

Senkai turned towards the other armoured hero, lifting his fists.

"You need to stop telling me what to do. I don't even know who you or who you're working for."

Behind his mask, Kazama's eyes narrowed.

"Don't be an idiot, we're all in the same boat here, there's no need to fight."

Senkai laughed hollowly.

"That's what all the other dudes here say, but that kid I met told me that this guy knows the secret of this place, and I want some answers so you better not stand in my way."

"Other dudes?" Kazama asked. "What kid that you met?"

Senkai rolled his head and made an audible sound of frustration.

"I'm done talking to you!"

With a rush, he charged forward again, his fist pulled back and aimed at Kazama's head.

x

Each of the ghosts rushed forward, the royal cloak of the foremost flowing out with the swiftness of his movement as Heuschrecke struggled to compete against them, his bio-armour blistering and writhing, struggling to predict where next the attack would come from to harden itself against the predicted impact—struggling and failing.

"You might as well give up," the boy remarked, standing a short distance away, his hands deep in the pockets of his loose trowsers, as if Heuschrecke represented no threat to him whatsoever.

"There's no shame in saying you lost to me," he said, kicking at the dirt with his heavy workman's boots. "After all, I'm here to destroy this world."

Keep talking, Heuschrecke thought. Keep boasting, your kind always do.

He turned his head, enduring another blow as JumpMan lashed out with a savage kick and he was knocked back in the dirt, throwing his arms up to shield himself from a volley of blasts from Dreamcaster's light-gun. Yet still he kept his head turned, the flesh of his mask twisting, growing twitching antenna.

The boy continued to kick at the dirt, not really paying attention to Heuschrecke as the edge of MONARCH's blade caught him, a spurt of dark blood issuing forth. And if he had no interest in Heuschrecke, then certainly he was indifferent to Aquila, the other man's hunched form sinking slowly to the dirt, clutching the place where his arm had been, slowly losing consciousness.

"But just in case you do survive this," the boy continued, "then you'll want to tell your friends that Zackery Orion put you in your place. You should probably remember that."

Keep talking, he thought to himself, his antenna growing, twitching, reaching out.

Another blow from MONARCH's sword caught him but he managed to hold his ground, focusing entirely on the armour and its growth.

In the dirt, Aquila lifted his head, dazed, his face hidden behind the matte red mask.

"I guess you could say I'm just a passing through—"

From his mask, the antenna lashed out suddenly, extending like wires that wrapped around the severed chunk of his flesh, the remnants of Aquila's arm. It took moments, less than seconds, for the connexion between Heuschrecke and the severed limb to become final, and, on the ground, the raw material was consumed instantly, growing, transforming, mutating into a mockery of Aquila's ruined arm.

In the distance, he heard the boy, Orion, call out, but it was too late. Scuttling across the dirt, still bound to Heuschrecke by the antenna that wrapped around it, the arm reached the fallen Roman soldier with ease, its fingers becoming a sharp point that sliced through the man's other hand and drove deep into the gaping wound.

Flavius Furius Aquila screamed out in sudden wakefulness, stirred from the dim descent into unconsciousness as the thing that had once been his hand drove its way backwards into his body, pulling Heuschrecke up out of the battle with the three ghosts by merit of the bound antenna.

If the old Roman had any last thoughts, they were not pleasant. Sailing towards him, Heuschrecke's armour became bloated with spikes, shafts of hardened flesh and bone, new limbs sprouting from all over his body. With force, he slammed into Aquila and punctured him, armour and all, and binding them together, the bio-armour washing over his form like a tide of viscous rot, consuming him in more seconds.

In that space where Aquila had once crouched, in that space where Heuschrecke had flown to, there was only one figure now, the hideous locust, twice the size it had once been, steam pouring from its towering new form.

Slowly, Heuschrecke rose, turned and regarding Zackery Orion and his three ghosts.

"You were saying, if I recall, something about how there is no shame in defeat."

Orion swallowed hard, and, for the first time in a very long time, the young boy worried about the outcome of his next battle.

* * *

**A/N: ****Genki Tamashii created by Rider09 ~ **u/1938693

**Punk Rocket and Ryunosuke "Ryan" Kazama created by Kamen Rider Chrome ~ **u/676659

**Zackery Masayoshi Orion created by Lewamus Prime 2019 ~ **u/6878339

**Merlin Seno created by Timelordkid** ~ u/4006703

**Mashuto Senkai created by Kamen Rider Yokai** ~ u/4133255


	4. Chapter 4

**Exiled for ever, let me mourn**

There was a story that Saturn had once ruled the skies. In this place—beyond the end of the universe, beyond the haunting, disembodied voices that the people of Earth had long since become—Josh McClain could believe it, the vastness of the great planet illuminating what was left of the cosmos after the fall of everything.

Standing upon the surface of Rhea, the young man looked out upon the sky, the stars so very different from those he had known in childhood. Dressed in a simple black shirt and blue jeans, his black baseball boots worn with age, the clothes he wore seem oddly out of place, quaint reminders of the time he had lived in, the life that had been his before the collapse of everything.

He tried to steal himself against such thoughts. It wasn't that there had been any great disaster that had ended life in the cosmos, it was just… well, it was the way of things, the natural decline into decay. Once there had been life, now, as the universe was drawn closer to closer together, as the cosmos around him shrank, now there was nothingness.

"A penny for your thoughts, young man?"

The voice caught him off guard and he turned with more than a little surprise upon his face. Standing before him amidst the silence of Rhea stood a figure in dark armour, two weapons holstered at his side, a bright orange gun, the Virtua Stunner, on the right side, and the handle of a Virtua Stick on the left, his shoulders were decorated with gentle grey depictions the planet Saturn.

McClain smiled gently, still slightly ill-at-ease in the presence of his mentor.

"I was just thinking—" he stopped himself, trying to find the right words, "I was just thinking if there was another way."

From behind the other man's mask, his expression was impossible to read.

"Not now," he said sadly, "not now things have progressed this far. Had not the Destroyer become involved, then perhaps things would not have necessitated your involvement, but now time is askew and we cannot turn a blind eye to this."

McClain nodded, the frustration clear on his face. If things had been different, if they weren't so constrained—quickly he pushed the thought to the back of his mind; if things had been different, then he wouldn't be here where he was now, he wouldn't have been torn away as a child from his younger sister, Jennifer, and cast into the far future.

If things had been different, he never would have been apprenticed to Saturn himself.

He nodded sadly, already having known the answer before he had even voiced his doubts.

"When should I leave?"

Beneath the dark armour, his mentor seemed to shrug.

"_When_ is irrelevant. Leave when you feel you are ready, Joshua; now, tomorrow, one year from now, a decade from now—it matters not, you will still arrive at the same point in the past regardless of when you depart this place."

"I guess so," he murmured, not fully convinced.

Saturn was silent, unreadable, waiting in silence, the colossal sight of the burning planet named after him in the distant sky over his head.

Sadly, he brought his right arm up, the smooth silver of the device bound to his wrist glittering with lights upon its display. He swallowed hard, and then, at last, said the words, more than a little sadness in his voice.

"It's morphin' time!"

The light above Saturn's head seemed suddenly to burn that much brighter.

"_Cronus Power_!"

x

Not good, Zackery Orion thought to himself, the heroes he had summoned dissipating like dust as Heuschrecke tore through all three of them. He needed to end this soon, he thought, otherwise this creature would end up eating him too, and, as much as he did not savour the thought of being consumed alive, he also felt a terrifying sense of anxiety when he imagined the old soldier in full possession of the powers he held.

Swiftly, yet lacking in confidence, Orion lifted his arm, flicked the card between his fingers and dropped his arm to his side, flashing the card before the belt at his waist, triggering the fateful summoning of his own armour.

Sensing the change in the atmosphere, Heuschrecke turned to regard him with contempt, blood and gore dripping from the open mouth of the mask he wore.

From within an adjacent realm, a dimension in which Orion's armour waited patiently to be summoned into existence by the man who had inherited it—the man destined to connect all, to _destroy_ all—that magenta and black emerged shape, Dai-von Shockä's most prized weapon gone awry, wrapping itself about the boy in a flash of brilliant white light.

With a further flash, seven cards of light materialised and drove forward, lodging themselves into his helmet and bleeding a hue of red into the shoulders and gauntlets of the suit.

Before the armour had fully crystallised about him, he reached down once more, snapping a second card free from the belt and unlocking the device once more.

Orion moved his hands over the surface of the belt, palms splayed, the atmosphere about him charged with static energy.

'_Count Ryusei_!' the belt announced with pride and the armour around him shifted, transforming in a blur of colour into a second suit of red, overlaid with a silver breastplate and helm, the mask divided by a grid that obscured its swollen eyes.

Without pause, he launched himself forward and disappeared.

There was a blur of movement in the broken mirror inside the old warehouse and then Orion burst forward behind Heuschrecke, lashing out with his fists in two consecutive blows that sent the other's head reeling. And yet, swifter than any human, the beast was upon him in retaliation, his hands clawing at Orion's throat, attempting to choke the life out of him, the Ryusei armour fading, giving way once more to the original red and black design of his initial suit.

Tightening the grasp of his giant hands, his breath shallow and his eyes wild, the old soldier slowly began to crush Orion's windpipe, the metal yielding beneath the pressure he exerted.

"You'll regret that," he growled.

"I wouldn't count on it," the younger man answered with attempted disinterest, his voice strained.

Bursts of light exploded from the man's back, Orion holding out his gun at waist height, the barrel shoved against the monster's creased belly.

From his mouth, a fountain of gore erupted, the remnants of Aquila vomited forth and spattering in chunks against Orion's magenta armour.

Slowly but surely, Herr Heuschrecke's grasp began to lessen.

x

"Have you come to free me?" the boy demanded, and it seemed to Genki as if the cat somehow sensed its master's rage, for at the raising of his voice, it swiftly picked itself up from where it sat and disappeared off into an adjoining room, its tail swishing with displeasure.

"You know, I remember all this when it was just forests," the young girl said, her voice suddenly filled with a sudden enthusiasm.

"A forest you buried me beneath," Merlin Seno hastily replied, his tone full of displeasure.

Joan Smith shrugged.

"It was necessary," she answered.

"Necessary for whom?" Merlin retorted. "In whose best interests was it to imprison me in this tower?"

Joan smiled quietly.

"It's not a tower anymore," she remarked, "the number 43 bus runs just outside, you know."

Feeling as if he was being left behind, Tamashii Genki decided it was about high time someone explained to him what was going on.

"Hey," he interjected, "impartial observer here. Someone want to try explaining to me what the hell is happening?"

Joan waved at him dismissively.

"Merlin, this is a boy I met in a gravel pit; boy I met in a gravel pit, this is Merlin Seno, better known as Magus by some. A private detective of sorts and an amateur magician."

Genki felt his face flush red.

"Hey, kid, I have a name, you know."

Indifferent to Genki's protests, Merlin rounded on the young girl with contempt.

"I am far from amateur—"

"If you could both be quiet for a moment," Joan Smith said, her sudden gravitas silencing both men, "then I will explain to you both why I have brought you together."

She looked from one to the other, both Seno and Tamashii intimidated by the sudden shift in the child's tone.

"There is a boy I need you to find for me. He is in grave danger," she said, a slight tremble entering her voice. "In this world he must be no more than 10-years-old."

She looked from one to the other.

"His name is Joshua McClain."

x

Sparks flew, the knuckles of Senkai's gauntlet shattering as his fist met Kazama's own, pushing back with impossible force as the two armoured figures clashed, flames of spirit energy burning bright, marking them out like pyres upon the horizon.

Still bowed upon the grass, Kurogane Weiss looked down at his bloodied hands and fallen shotgun. In all his time in service of the Authoress, in all his time as caretaker of the realm, he had not lost, not like that; it was his duty to ensure the narrative ran clear, his duty to enforce those decisions made by his mistress—he could not allow such dead ends as these two to continue their derailing of the plot!

'_I didn't expect this of you, Weiss_,' a voice whispered in his ear, a presence at his shoulder.

His eyes widened, a tremble running through his body. He knew she wasn't there, he knew that it was impossible for her to be there, and yet still the touch of her mind inspired dread in him.

'_I thought you were made of sterner stuff_,' she chided him, her voice full of mock disappointment.

"Y-Your majesty," he stammered, "Your majesty, I won't fail you, I—"

'_Perhaps I should chuse a new servant_,' she continued to whisper in his ear, '_this Senkai child looks promising. Perhaps he would do a better job serving me._'

There was a pause, and Kurogane could sense rather than feel her smile.

'_Or perhaps I should feed you to Heuschrecke, maybe_?' She stopped, and again, rather than seeing it, he sensed her frown. '_Although he too seems to have failed me as of late. I'll need to fix that later_.'

"Your majesty, I beg your forgiveness for causing you to doubt me," he said, throwing himself prostrate to the ground, face down upon the grass. "I promise I will not fail you further."

He listened for further reply, but none was forthcoming. From behind him, Kazama once more withdrew his lethal drumsticks, their tips bursting into flame as he cast a wave of flame out with a twist of his wrists.

x

"Hey, kid, you with us?" Genki asked, waving his hand in front of her face.

Joan blinked.

"Sorry," she said with a smile, "I was elsewhere."

She turned, looking from Genki to Merlin.

"This boy," she then continued, as if there had been no break in the conversation, "is key to this whole mystery, the misalignment of the planets, the disorientation that all who exist here suffer from."

Merlin raised a single eyebrow, his expression one of coldness.

"And how do you figure that?" he demanded.

"Because I can remember him," Joan insisted with an exasperated sigh. "There are three people I can recall from before I arrived here: Joshua McClain, Kurogane Weiss, and your good self, Merlin."

"Wait, if you didn't know you were coming here, how did you know your friend here would be here?" Genki asked, a look of confusion on his face.

Joan smiled goofily.

"Because the place in which I imprisoned Merlin is a crossroads, and all crossroads are bound to lead back to this place in at least one direction. It was in the rules of the compact when first I sealed him away."

"And the moment you let me free of this place, I promise to burn it down with phoenix flame," Merlin swore vehemently.

Genki looked apprehensively in his direction.

"Okayy," he said, drawing the word out. "So, what exactly is the beef between you two?"

"This evil spirit is a sorceress," Merlin remarked, glaring at Joan, "a witch who beguiles by taking on an unassuming form and swindles her allies out of their secrets."

Joan smiled patiently.

"Merlin is sour as he feels I have cheated him. I, however, bear him no ill-will."

"You're shameless," Merlin spat, "why don't you show your new friend your true face?"

The smile did not fade from the girl's lips.

"It's too early in the story for that," she answered, her words containing the hint of a threat.

There was silence between them, and Genki whistled softly, gently swaying his arms back and forth in a gesture that made him look uncommonly like a penguin.

"So," he said, "next question: who's this Kurogane Weiss guy?"

"A powerful foe," Joan said softly, "and the servant of an evil sorceress. He was once my most talented pupil… before he fell to darkness."

Merlin's gaze did not falter.

"And if we find this Joshua kid of yours, you'll set me free?"

Joan nodded.

"I will."

There was a long moment in which no one said nothing, and then finally Genki piped up:

"Hey, do I get anything out of this deal?"

"No," Joan and Merlin both said simultaneously, neither turning to look at him.

"Oh," he murmured, "cool, just as long as we've got that cleared up."

Another long moment of silence passed.

"Where do we start looking for this kid?" Merlin finally asked with a sigh.

x

The flesh blistered and burnt, the remnants of Heuschrecke shrivelling up and fading away in mere moments, a time-lapse video, the kind he had seen in science class in some school long ago. Zackery Orion had lost track of his normal life, the life he had had before accepting the responsibility of his powers, his armour.

That moment still felt like a dream to him, and, if he was honest, he had yet to fully come to trust in his ability as the Destroyer of Evil, because, after all, who in their right mind would want to trust a 19-year-old with the power to end reality?

It was a joke, he had told himself in those early days, it had to be a joke. And yet the longer things went on, the more and more he became convinced that the armour's original owner was never coming back and that it was just him, alone, forever.

But he was 19-years-old, for Christ's sake, how was he going to shoulder this for the rest of his life? Did this mean that he'd never get to live a normal life, that he'd always be moving between realities? Did this mean that he would never have a normal relationship, that he could never leave a normal life?

He ran a hand through his wild black hair and realised that his hand was trembling. In the shards of broken mirror, he caught sight of himself, his warm, tan complexion, his eyes wide, frightened by the recent confrontation, and, for the briefest moment, he did not recognise himself.

A sudden flare of blistering light shook him from his maudlin thoughts, a sound like the hammering of thunder in the heavens. He flinched, drawing his transformation card from his pocket once more as he became aware of a new presence on the horizon, the fog parting as a figure in a silver uniform rose from a crouch in the space he had landed, a white cape falling from his shoulders, the ground ruined at his feet.

Orion arched an eyebrow, taking in the sight of the other, the gold visor, the weighty staff he carried with him.

"Oh," he smirked, "and who are you supposed to be?"

Josh McClain straightened up, his cape moving in the gentle breeze.

"The man who is going to stop you from destroying this world," he said simply.

All of his doubt forgotten, Zackery Orion slid the card across the surface of the belt once more and smiled.

"I'd like to see you try," he remarked with spite.

x

At the last moment, Mashuto Senkai leant back, the fire cutting a path over his head, the heat oppressive against his silver and orange armour.

This was not how it should be, the young boy thought. When he had received the attaché case with the Illusion Fox and Mystic Dragon keys, he had—sudden understanding hit him even as he had righted himself. When he had received the attaché case from the gynoid, Atsumi, when he had been informed of his appointment as inheritor of the Fusion armour by Demonseed Innovators, he had been told something important.

—_"__The Fusion driver allows for a variety of combinations," she remarked, her hand gliding through the air to reveal a circular disk with the words '_Tutorial Mode Start' _upon it. "Please familiarise yourself with the myriad combinations."_

_Senkai turned to look at her in disbelief, unable to understand how she could expect him to memorise such things, but she simply stood there, unblinking, her hands folded in her lap. He had heard that all those of her model were named after Honshu peninsulas, Chita, Miura, Izu, and so forth, and yet Atsumi seemed oddly cold even for a gynoid._

_ "__I can't remember all this stuff," he protested._

_ "__You can," she replied simply, "your mind now has the processing speed of an advanced AI, you will be able to react accordingly."_

_She stopped, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to her. Does that happen to robots, he asked himself._

_ "__Unless this is a simulation," she stated flatly._

_ "__What?" he frowned._

_She gestured at the white space around him._

_ "_This _is a simulation," she stated. "Yet if this simulation is occurring within another simulation and this scenario is the imagining of a further advanced AI then you are at a disadvantage."_

_ "_What?!_" he asked again._

_ "__And if you have not aided in the development of said further hypothetical AI, you may find yourself punished."_

_ "_WHAT?!_" he said a third time._

_She blinked._

_ "__Roko's basilisk, archived 23__rd__ July, 2010, 12:30PM. Please consider this."_—

A jolt brought him back from his reflection, Kazama's elbow smacking him in the face. If he was operating with the speed of a computer, then why wasn't he a match for Kazama? If this place was connected to the world he knew then why could he not read Kazama's attacks?

He had to try something new, he couldn't stay on the defensive like this. That little girl, that Joan Smith, had told him that if he was able to defeat the Crass Reaper, Kurogane, then he would not only learn the secret of this dead place but he would have earnt his way off it.

There had been other keys in the attaché case, all he needed to do was disengage and swap out Illusion Fox and Mystic Dragon for two of the others and then he would be able to get the drop on Kazama. But the satellite—

—_"__Whilst using the Fusion driver, you will have the advantage of both armour transferred from the Demonseed satellite as well as the data stored within the keys. Should you find yourself out of range—"_

_ "__Yeah, but really, how likely is it that I'm going to be out of range of the satellite? It's a satellite, right? It can reach anywhere in the world. I'm not going to need to remember this."_

_ "__Should you find yourself out of range of the satellite," Atsumi continued, her eyes unblinking, "then you will be able to operate in offline mode, using the data in the keys alone. Please consider this when going forward."_—

Idiot, he cursed himself, teeth grinding beneath the mask. Why had he not remembered this? Why had it taken him this long to recall Atsumi's words? He'd have to apologise to her later, he thought, once he got Kazama out of his way and finally got some answers out of this Kurogane dude.

He thought again of that little girl and her advice. There was no way a kid would lie to him, surely? It didn't matter, soon enough he was going to find out! He had the other keys, now all he needed to do was—

Too late, he heard Kazama's friend, Punk Rocket, as he shouted out in alarm.

Senkai blinked, and then he saw him, Kurogane Weiss, standing suddenly directly behind Kazama. There was a long moment in which he held the Crass Reaper's gaze, and then, abruptly, the shotgun roared once more and Kazama's waist opened up in an explosive flower, shards of bone and innards splashing over Senkai's armour as his foe was bisected by the tremendous blast.

In the distance, he could hear Punk Rocket shouting again, but all he could focus on now was the ominous figure of Kurogane Weiss as he reloaded his shotgun.

x

It was warm, the scent of summer still lingering, the memory of someone he once was. In shrill voices, he heard the cicadas crying, calling out to one another in loneliness, and he lifted his head, staring at his reflection in the broken mirror.

How long had it been, a year, maybe more? Time moved strangely here, he reflected, this dead world at the end of everything. He remembered the howl of the guns, the ceaseless bombardments, night after night, and he remembered the chill of the dead forests as he made his way from the trenches across France in search of von Shockä and his minions, but beyond that, his mind was a blank,

Surely there had to be others in this place, surely he could not be alone, surely—there was a sudden sound like the hammering of thunder in the heavens, and he trembled, flinching, the sound so deafening that it was louder than any howitzer he had ever known.

Snatching up his greatcoat, he turned away from the broken mirror and faced the entrance of the desolate warehouse seeing two men he had never before met highlighted in the light that poured through the doorway. A sudden thrill ran through him, almost as if some forgotten memory was once more on the edge of his recollection, and yet, as soon as he became aware of it, it was once more gone. What he did know, however, that these two men were his enemies, as dangerous as any monster he had faced in the fields and trenches—Spinne-Mann, Fledermaus-Mann, Skorpion-Mann.

With resignation, he nodded sadly, lowering his arms, crossing them at his waist.

"_Henshin_," he said quietly.

Beneath the rags of his clothes, pale flesh began to bubble and erupt in sores.

* * *

**A/N: ****Genki Tamashii created by Rider09 ~ **u/1938693

**Punk Rocket and Ryunosuke "Ryan" Kazama created by Kamen Rider Chrome ~ **u/676659

**Zackery Masayoshi Orion created by Lewamus Prime 2019 ~ **u/6878339

**Merlin Seno created by Timelordkid** ~ u/4006703

**Mashuto Senkai created by Kamen Rider Yokai** ~ u/4133255

**Josh McClain created by dannyrockon122** ~ u/5185539

**Count Ryusei created by Rai**


	5. Chapter 5

**Dew of Blood**

The pavement was blisteringly hot beneath his feet. Only 10-years-old and holding his younger sister's hand, dragging her along behind him as she wailed sorrowfully, Joshua McClain did not look down at her feet, so he didn't know that they are bleeding, the soles cut open on the hot stone. All he could see was her face, red and swollen with exhaustion and fear, and he kept trying to tell her that things were going to be okay.

It was a stupid idea, going to the shore, away from their parents; it was stupid because he thought he would be able to remember the way back, and yet he was famous for not paying attention, everyone said so, especially his dad. He was 10-years-old, and, hand in hand with his baby sister, he was running up and down the pavement, looking for his parents, a circus that passes through for the empty streets, a bird that continues to collide with the window of a conservatory.

Her hand in his, he became conscious of her cries, and yet he could not bring himself to look back at her, again, could not turn to face her sad eyes and ash white hair, all he could focus on was the path beneath his feet, the swirling fog around him, and the haunting sound of the monstrous amphibian abomination that chased them both through the empty world beyond the shore. If he looked back, he would see that creature, that impossible monster, the kind his parents had told him did not exist, the kind that obviously _did_ exist.

It was then that he caught glimpse of the sudden doorway fashioned of shifting silver ahead, it was then that he became aware of its movement on the horizon, shifting closer and closer. He was unable to stop, his feet refusing to slow. Behind him he heard the bellowing of the creature, and then, in alarm, felt a terrible wrenching, his young sister torn from his side.

He stumbled, toppling forwards into the doorway of shimmering mercury, and, turning too late, was just in time to see the young girl now in the clutches of the mutant monster, blood pouring down into her eyes.

x

The magenta and white armour reformed in a moment, and, in less than a second, was supplanted by the guise of another, his suit fashioned of silver and red tartan, armour clunky and boxy, a rectangular visor decorated along the line where his eyes would have been.

'_Armoured Hero Ota_,' the mechanism within his belt called out with mechanical bravado.

Snapping open two light-blades, orange and yellow, he rushed forward, hammering the blades in vast colourful arcs against McClain's staff and then tossing them upwards above him.

'_Tiger_!' the belt announced in the same bleating mechanical voice used by the K-R-A 2 armour.

The tartan of his armour transformed to tiger print, a cloak unfurling from his back, the head of the noble beast appearing atop his helm, forepaws draped over his shoulders.

Snatching the light-blades from the air as they turned green and blue, he twisted, cutting terrible slashes against McClain's chest as he lunged forward, breastplate exploding outwards in smoke and flame.

With one hand, he took hold of both blades, his hand twisting the buckle again.

'_Fire_!' the belt cried as the cloak vanished in a flash of white light.

Both blades and armour ignited in a pyre of flame, the armoured hero spinning on the spot before striking the other with a wave of fire, both swords still held in one hand as he switched the buckle anew.

'_Cyber_!' the machine voice called out as his armour expanded, a further layer emerging from _godspace_ and appending itself to his suit in a flurry of flashing LEDs and thick wires and circuitry.

Tossing the right-hand blade to his free hand as the colour of the swords turned red and purple, he drove both weapons down into the boy's chest, leaving both buried there as he dropped to one knee, a distorted groan from regret stirring behind the silver mask.

Orion turned the buckle a third time.

'_Fiber_!'

Transforming into a flat, paper-thin version of his self, he sailed off, slashing back and forth across the armour of his enemy with a thousand lethal paper cuts and sending the armoured soldier staggering backwards in the dirt, collapsing into the sand, her chest heaving heavily.

Landing on his feet, three dimensional once more, Orion flicked the buckle once again.

'_Diver_!'

His armoured boots turned into flippers, a heavy oxygen tank appearing on his back and a scuba mask over his visor as he turned towards McClain and opened up the flat of his palms, spewing out streams of ocean water with such force that he was slammed further into the dirt.

Turning the buckle again, the voice called out:

'_Viber_!'

The scuba gear vanished, replaced by a pair of massive tartan headphones decorated with large white stars as he plucked free the two swords, the colours of the blades flashing red, green, yellow, orange, blue and purple, pounding electropop beats and saccharine sweet teenage voices blasting from the headphones with such volume that Josh McClain was thrown backwards into the wall of the warehouse, his golden visor shattering, revealing one hazel coloured eye.

"_Jya Jya_!" the hero bellowed as he lashed out in a flurry of blows, the other's armour cracked open and revealing the rest of the wounded boy's face.

Slowly, Orion lowered his weapons and turned, the Ota armour fading away, defaulting again to the magenta of his inherited suit.

"You're not the first to try," he smirked, "don't feel bad about getting beat."

From behind his broken visor, McClain glowered at the boy.

"You idiot," he snarled, pulling himself up, one hand still grasping his staff, "you don't understand what your presence here is doing."

"Oh," Orion smirked, "and how would you know?"

"Because I'm from the future!" McClain snapped. "Your presence here is destabilising this place and when it goes boom, it's going to cause direct feedback into the world you got pulled from. By destroying this place, you'll destroy your own world."

Zackery Orion hesitated.

"So?" he said, trying to sound as if he was indifferent to such a prospect.

"So you'll be responsible for the death of the solar system," McClain shouted, lifting his staff once more, "and that's why I can't let you beat me so easily."

Orion tensed, ready for the next fight, yet there was already doubt in his movements. Could what this new challenger said really be true? Could he really be responsible for destroying not just this realm but the very world he came from?

No chance, he thought, he was the hero of this story, right? The only things he destroyed were inherently evil.

"It's a weak argument," he smirked, "I don't care for it."

Before McClain could react, his hand was on the hilt of his gun once more, a fresh card loaded in, the trigger pulled.

There was a blur of primary colours shifting into physical shape, and suddenly a new figure was between them, electricity sparking between the antennae of his overly large helmet with its tinted black glass visor, a cruel yellow and black Taser hooked to his canary yellow utility belt.

"_Cyclone Ranger_!" the puppet called out, lifting his fists.

Abruptly, from the open doorway of the warehouse, a monstrous beast lurched forward, lunging towards Cyclone Ranger.

With fear, Zackery Orion's eyes grew wide.

x

The first thing Senkai became aware of in the moments after that deafening blast was someone shouting, and, slowly, he looked down to see Punk Rocket cradling the remnants of his friend's ruined form and seemingly rooting about in the gore and viscera, a frenzied look upon his face.

In his throat, he felt bile rising up, and he was plagued suddenly by the notion that he was going to throw up and would have to live like that, the smell of it under his nose in the mask he was too scared to take off. But the satellite wasn't necessary, right? That was what Atsumi had said, and if ever there was a time to test those other keys, then surely, with his former foe down on the ground before him and the masked rider once more in his horrific black armour, then surely now was the time to test them.

With a flick of his wrist, he pulled another key free from his belt, a rich green and silver in colour. His thumb depressed the button on its side and it flicked open, lowered to his waist, sliding with ease into the belt's mechanism.

'_Creeper Weed_,' the belt called out.

Wait, where had he heard that before?

'_Authorise_!'

"Oh, shit," he mouthed softly.

From his belt, vines exploded outwards and then recalled, wrapping themselves around him, engulfing his armour, consuming him completely, transforming him into the likeness of that creature he had glimpsed on the horizon when first he had approached Kazama and Rocket.

He recalled with sudden panic the words of the girl he had met on the path, the girl with the question mark button badge who had instructed him to seek out Kurogane Weiss:

'_This world makes monsters of heroes, boy. Be careful out there_.'

She had been smiling, he realised—_she had been smiling when she said this_!

Its voice trembling, from beneath the new flesh of his being, the belt whispered one last time:

'_This plant consumes all that surrounds it. Try not to get snared_.'

Everything after that was darkness.

x

The monstrous shape of the locust closed the distance in no time, its hands swiftly wrapping about the puppet's throat, choking the life out of it, the suit reaching out and eating it in moments, the shape of the armour swelling and shifting.

Josh McClain cried out in alarm, jumping back a step or two as Heuschrecke howled in fury, and, dimly he became aware of the man who had so recently defeated him calling out, shouting some kind of warning about the shape of their new enemy.

He watched as Orion feinted and dodged, as the gun he used to produce his puppets sailed through the air, and, slowly, he began to understand, reaching out and snatching the gun, aiming it at the monster's back. This was a truce, he realised, this was confirmation of what he already knew, of what Saturn had already told him, that despite the presence of the Destroyer, there were other evils here, other monsters that he would need to defeat.

He thought back on the last moments of his time here, so long ago now, the shape of that crocodile, his sister's hand slipping from his. She was dead, he knew that, there was no way he could change that, and yet maybe, he thought, just maybe, if he defeated the Destroyer, he could revert the world, reset it, stop any of them from ever having been brought here.

Beneath his armour, he felt a bead of cold sweat running down his back. He held the Destroyer's gun, the other had trusted him with it, and, surely, such a weapon as this would be enough to put an end to that other as well as the creature they now faced?

He adjusted his aim even as Orion struggled with the locust, wrestling it, batting back the exploratory tendrils of flesh that sneaked out from its form; he turned the gun from the monster towards Orion, taking aim, lining up the sights with the other's head.

If he pulled the trigger now, he would be sure to blow Orion's head off, to spatter his brains across the ground, and yet the Destroyer had _trusted_ him, despite everything, he had _trusted_ him.

Ahead of him, Orion grappled with the creature, his armoured helm smashing forwards again and again in a succession of head-butts that smashed the likeness of the locust.

McClain felt a roar of confusion and anger rising up in him as he pulled the trigger, turning the gun away at the last moment from his former opponent and spattering fire against the locust creature's back, its armour exploding, chunks of flesh flying from it as the Destroyer delivered a devastating punch to the revealed face of the man beneath the mask.

Again, Heuschrecke dropped to his knees, confusion on his face, blood streaming from a gash upon his forehead.

"Who are you?" he whispered, looking up at Orion with confusion and hurt.

The other did not respond.

What difference would it make, Zackery Orion asked himself; he was already going to destroy this world, what difference would it make if he killed the old soldier now before he became the monster again, before he had time to grow, to eat others, to end up like the savage creature he had faced only moments ago.

With gloved hands, he reached out, and, in his mind's eye, all he could see was his hands about the other's throat, throttling him as readily as he had done to the summoned ghost of Cyclone Ranger.

Instead, he took hold of the man and pulled him up from the ground.

"Get up," he snarled, turning away, "we'll need your strength if we're going to escape this place."

Beneath the mask, his gaze turned towards McClain, still brandishing the smoking gun.

"All three of us," he said with intent, and reached down for his belt, the armour fading away once more.

x

They had circled back to get Genki's bike, Merlin hotwiring one of the varied abandoned motorcycles that littered the abandoned streets. There were a lot of bikes out here, Genki thought to himself, an inordinate amount. It was like this world had been populated by motorbike riders, and, at the same time, as if someone had gone through the lot of them, thinning them out, weeding out the weak from the strong.

As they tore down the empty streets, ploughing through the fog, the shape of the landscape seemed to change, the old industrial warehouses reasserting their shapes on the landscape.

The wind howled, gathering up around them and pushing back against them as they moved, almost as if it was opposed to their journey, as if it was against any sort of resolution to their situation.

It was impossible for Genki to read Merlin in this situation, if the blustering wind had not made conversation impossible then the journey itself would have, both men confined within their private thoughts, hunched over the handlebars of their individual bikes. There was obviously a lot of history between Merlin and Joan, though Genki didn't really care to speculate as to what that history was. When first he had met her, he had thought she was just a kid, now he was beginning to understand that she was anything other than a child—and that scared him.

Perhaps Joan Smith wasn't so innocent, he thought.

Ahead of them, in the swirling fog, he suddenly caught sight of something hideous, something like a crocodile stumbling about on two legs, its physiology almost human but for the texture of its body, the shape of its head—and the twin barrels of the cannon strapped to its back!

The tires of Merlin's '_borrowed_' bike screeched against the road as he swung it around, slamming a shoe down to the ground and reaching for his belt buckle.

Coming to a stop just ahead of him, Genki leapt from his bike, reaching into his back pocket and pulling free the tuning fork that would, like Kazama, allow him to assume his armoured form.

Dismounting, Merlin swept back his jacket, revealing the buckle of his belt, a black hand trimmed with silver, dotted with silver stars.

"We've been set up," he snarled, slipping a silver ring onto the second finger of his left hand. "That witch set us up."

Genki tapped the fork against the side of his bike.

"You don't know that," he protested weakly, "we already know this place is dangerous."

Before them, the crocodile monster threw its head back in a howl, beating its chest with scaly claws.

"Don't be an idiot," Merlin snapped, his expression one of barely contained anger, "Nimue set us up, she told us in what direction we should travel and she knew exactly what we would find."

"You can't be sure of that," Genki answered, even though doubt crept steadily into his voice.

"Of course, I can!" the other shouted. "It's in her nature, it's—"

"_Shut up_!" a third voice suddenly called, cutting through their argument, and wide-eyed, Genki turned to see another man standing beside him, a wild expression, dressed in a white shirt and an unflattering black and white windbreaker.

"Shut up," he said again, the rhythm of his words staccato, his gestures sharp and frantic. "Who cares about the details? Let's go, everyone!"

Genki turned to look at Merlin with confusion.

"Who's that?" he asked.

"I said it doesn't matter!" the stranger gestured frantically. "Don't worry about the little things!"

Again, the crocodile-monster ahead of them bellowed with rage.

"He's right," Merlin growled, passing the ring over the buckle of the belt. "Let's deal with this."

With a snap of his fingers and a shimmer of light, he extended his arm, an ancient sigil blistering into existence at the contact between belt and ring.

'_Leviathan_,' the aged buckle called out, and, for a moment, Merlin Seno stood superimposed upon that arcane symbol before the shape of it consumed him, drowning him in its mystical glow.

When he emerged, he was hidden completely, blue accents in the lenses of the mask and upon the breastplate, a hood that connected to a billowing cloak covering most of the helm.

With a twist of his hand, he moved the ring over the buckle again.

'_Excite_!' it announced with enthusiasm, and, before either Genki or the stranger could transform, he launched into movement, his boots thundering against the ground, his legs moving at impossible speed.

Incapable of avoiding the attack, the crocodile-monster's chest erupted in wounds.

* * *

**A/N: ****Genki Tamashii created by Rider09 ~ **u/1938693

**Punk Rocket and Ryunosuke "Ryan" Kazama created by Kamen Rider Chrome ~ **u/676659

**Zackery Masayoshi Orion created by Lewamus Prime 2019 ~ **u/6878339

**Merlin Seno created by Timelordkid** ~ u/4006703

**Mashuto Senkai created by Kamen Rider Yokai** ~ u/4133255

**Josh McClain created by dannyrockon122** ~ u/5185539


	6. Chapter 6

**The Abyss Looks into Me**

'_There, don't say I never do anything for you_.'

He could feel her presence, feel that pulling in his mind that indicated that she was close by. Standing there, his shotgun still held outright, he watched as the former armoured hero Fusion writhed and screamed, his body consumed by vines and thorns.

A shiver of fear ran through him.

"Not like this," he murmured.

He sensed her there, could imagine the expression, taunting, mischievous.

'_Oh, are you feeling remorse, servant? Have I wounded your pride giving you a little helping hand_?'

"N-No, your majesty," he stammered.

But this isn't the fight I wanted, he thought to himself. Maybe though, it was too late to start worrying about the ethics, because, well, hadn't he used his own weapon to blow apart the first of his enemies whilst they were distracted? If it was chivalry and honour that Kurogane Weiss was hoping to exemplify then he had fallen far short of such a goal.

How long had it been, he asked himself, how long had he resided here in this dead world at his mistress's side, a losing dog running the course over and over again, unable to break away or change the course of his fate. Had he always been this way, had he always been the Crass Reaper?

His hands trembled before the belt.

'_You should be thanking me really_,' the Authoress continued, '_after all, I've done so much for you_.'

There _had_ been a time before this, he was certain; there had been a time before his servitude to the Authoress, before he had been interred within this dead world, trapped amongst these dead shades. For the briefest moment, he recalled another world, full of people, full of warmth, rich red apples hanging from trees, signs of a season he had never seen in this cold place.

'_I don't think you appreciate me like you should, Kurogane_,' the Authoress pouted, and he struggled to block her out, to focus on the significance of what was taking place before him—and that which had happened before.

The weed witch howled with fury once more, and it took a tremendous effort for him to realise that there was a person beneath those twisted branches. Dimly, he became aware of Punk Rocket on the ground, his clothes stained with blood as he rooted through the exposed entrails of his friend and shouted indecipherable things that he could not fully understand.

'_Oh, look_,' the Authoress cooed in his ear, '_the little oni was inhabiting a fictional body, we're going to see something fun now._'

In desperation, Rocket reached further and further into the corpse, pulling free a tiny pellet, a shade of lime green stained red by its time within the artificial body. Without hesitation, Rocket tossed the pellet into his mouth and swallowed, ingesting it whole, blood and all.

'_It's disgusting, isn't it, the things people will eat_,' the Authoress smirked.

With a further screech, the thing that had once been Senkai lunged towards Punk Rocket. Deftly, the man's eyes snapped open, and Kurogane could tell at once that there was something different in his gaze, something different in the manner of his movements as he snatched up the tuning fork and leapt back from the body, deftly avoiding the snaking vines of the Creeper Weed.

"You there," the figure called to him, and at once the voice was both that of Punk Rocket and the deceased Kazama, "if you don't help me stop Senkai then nothing you do here will matter!"

'_Oh, he might be right, you know_,' the Authoress smirked, unseen by any save for Kurogane, '_maybe you better do what he says. Seems like he knows what he's talking about_.'

"Stop telling me what to do," Kurogane growled under his breath.

'_Can't_,' the Authoress beamed, '_it's my job, you know_.'

With a scream of frustration, he drove his two cartridges down into the belt at his waist, exciting the mechanism at his core and stirring it into life, a rasping voice resounding from its built-in computer:

'_Lilith_! _Samael_! _Death Match_!'

The soft chime of Kazama's tuning fork resounded through the air as Kazama/Rocket lifted it to their forehad.

"_Henshin_!" they called out, their eyes focused ahead of the shambling thing that had once been Mashuto Senkai.

Flames of spirit energy ignited about their body, blistering brightly, yet instead of revealing the form fitting black armour of Kazama's uniform, chains trailing from a skull etched into his chest, something else emerged, worn boots scrapped against the dirt and grass, a trail of dust and dirt rising in clouds about the scarred rubber soles; unsightly boots, heavy workman's issue, steel toe cap and stapled leather, stitching and glue binding the sole to the body, shorn laces trailing in the dirt.

They lifted their head, a grunt of displeasure escaping the lips beneath the heavy steel helmet they wore. The faceplate was chipped and scratched, the green of the original paintwork, the silver of the original steel soon painted over with thick blue, red and white; a garish Union flag painted over the uniform design of the mask's original creators. From the top of the helm, two antennae quivered, running down into the thick red of the Jack's cross and dividing two bulbous insect eyes, red glass shimmering softly.

About their shoulders they wore a torn leather jacket whilst at his back, and the Creeper Weed seemed to fall silent in awe of their presence.

Slowly, they raised their gloved right hand and balled it into a fist, and with a roar of anger, announced their name:

"_Camden Rider_!"

x

Swinging his guitar around from behind him, Tamashii Genki struck the tuning fork against the fretboard, lifting it up as the air around him rippled with the shimmer of spirit energy.

With a flick of his wrist, flames ignited, his armour called forth, not entirely dissimilar from that which Kazama had once wore, yet distinct in its serpentine design, the helm transformed into the likeness of a dragon, a suggestion of his familial crest.

To his right, the stranger in the awful windbreaker drew forth an oblique cube from the pocket of his jacket and twisted it three times, armour of black, gold, and silver flickering out of _godspace_ and adorning him anew.

"MONARCH of the World!" he bellowed, adopting a fighting stance. "_Muda_! _Muda_! _Muda_!"

Without pause, they charged forwards, adding their strength to Merlin's attacks, the crocodile-creature stumbling, staggering backwards, dark blood seeping from the wounds in its chest.

Howling once more, it threw its arms wide again, a shuddering wall of silver forming from which emerged a number of hideous shapes, the stamp of massive hooves echoing through the void as an army of sickly creatures broke through, many-eyed guises turning towards them as they ground to a halt, colossal and insect-like, translucent wings sprouting from their backs, front appendages raised like scythes.

Before them all, however, Merlin Seno showed no fear. He had seen endless beasts and gods in his time, the dark lord Chernobog presiding over his mountain fort, saintly Marzanna presiding over the underworld, the endless procession of the fae from their palace in Somers Town, the wild hunt that thundered across the skies, Odin's dogs howling in the wind; whatever foes he faced now, he was resolute, determined, and unshaken.

When first he had met Nimue they had both already been old in their years, their appearances dissonant with their experiences. Already, he thought, the world had begun to change even then. When she had finally imprisoned him in the tower and stolen from him the knowledge of those rites that even he dared not use, when the magical forest of Brocéliande had grown up around his gaol, he had not been truly surprised. Other magicians were seldom to be trusted, he reflected, let alone befriended.

And this place, he thought, what of this place? Nimue claimed to not know its location and yet to him it was clear that it was still that same isle wherein his gaol had first stood; despite the idiosyncrasy of it, despite the emptiness, it was still that same place—the _Isle of Apples_ as once as it was called—and if such was true then there must remain the souls of other heroes in this place, heroes greater than him, kings of no small renown. He just had to find a way to unite them, to bring them altogether and thwart Nimue's scheme, whatever it was.

Ahead of him, the foul insectoid creatures chittered with their many mouths and stamped their hooves.

"Way of Blessing number 32," Merlin growled. "Wraiths of Shadow!"

'_Copy_,' Merlin's belt rang out as he slid his palm across its surface, three identical clones of himself shimmering into being.

In time with one another, each version of the sorcerer lifted up their left hand and exchanged the rings they wore, a chime resounding from each belt as a further transformation overcame each one.

'_Phoenix_.'

'_Djinn_.'

'_Golem_.'

'_Leviathan_.'

As a group, the four of them rushed forwards, colliding with the monstrous insects with such speed that Genki struggled to keep up, barely holding his own against the enraged host, his gloved hands moving swiftly across the fret of the guitar, blasting out waves of spirit energy that impacted against the shells of the insects

Throwing his head back, the MONARCH of the World howled, his form transformed—right hand the paw of a wolf, left hand a crocodile's tail, a rhino horn jutting from the shoulder—and sprinted forward, dragging the crocodile-beast and rushing onward, never once stopping, screaming all the way as he carried the monster into the fog and disappeared completely.

Readying his guitar once more, it was then that Tamashii Genki became aware of a pitiful wailing, and, eyes widening behind his dragon mask, he noted the small, shivering shape of a child, ash white hair, covered in bruises and wounds. Deflecting a devastating blow from one of the insect creatures with the fretboard of his guitar, the jaws of Genki's mask opened, a plume of fire spurting forth and reducing the creature to ashes within moments.

Hastily, dodging further attacks, cutting through the remnants of the insect army even as Merlin crushed the remainder of them, he made his way over fallen bodies and broken chunks of pavement to where the young girl crouched behind a silent, burnt-out car.

Fear flashed across her face the moment she saw him barrelling across the ground towards her and he hastily disengaged his armour, leaping over one final fallen monster and landing in a crouch beside her. She recoiled instantly, falling backwards and crawling away from him with shock.

"Hey, kid, be careful!" he warned. "We're the good guys, promise!"

She regarded him with disbelief.

"My name's Genki, we're looking for a kid like you, his name is Josh, you know him?"

The child stared at him with incredulity.

"M-My brother," she stammered, "h-he's dead."

The weed witch stumbled this way and that, struck by a blow from the butt of Kurogane's shotgun and caught by a swift kick from Kazama/Rocket's work boots.

At the back of his mind, Kurogane could still feel the presence of the Authoress, and, though diminished, he could sense her disapproval and knew that he would pay for this dearly once the fight was over and all interlopers had departed the realm.

Again, he tried to recall what it had been like before he had journeyed to this place of mist and fog, and dimly, he seemed to recall an apple grove, the presence of animals around him—and yet as soon as he focused on such recollection, he found his thoughts muddled, the past seeming like a dream that forever slipped from his understanding. This, he realised, was no doubt the work of the Authoress's charms. A sudden, heretical thought occurred to him: perhaps if he defeated his mistress, then maybe he would know who once he had been. If the Authoress was defeated, he could reclaim his past, could reclaim all the memories that had been taken from him, the identity that had been _unwritten _by his service to the child-like empress of this dead world.

The Isle of Apples, he reflected, hearing the term mentioned long, long ago. And yet the fruit of this hideous place was rotten and maggot-ridden, a place filled to the brim with decay and horror. However long he had been in service to the Authoress, whatever it was that had caused him to agree to serve her, he knew now that he wanted no further part of it. He wanted to be free, to live his own life, to know who he had been before this moment.

With the back of his hand, he struck Senkai in the face, blossom and pollen pouring forth as his gauntlets impacted the knot of vines that now constituted his face. At the creature's back, he saw Kazama/Rocket leap up in the air and descend, delivering a vicious chop to the neck that cut through the vines but briefly, revealing the tarnished silver and orange below.

Spinning the shotgun around as he reloaded it, Kurogane reflected that Senkai's possession by the Creeper Weed had occurred when he had tried using further keys to upgrade his armour. It was a ploy, a trick played on him by the Authoress no doubt, a means of controlling him. What would happen, he thought then, if he could break through the vines and load the keys into his own armour; what would happen if he could take that which the Authoress had poisoned and somehow use it to combat her? Would Senkai survive the separation of the possessed keys, would he still be able to function in this world—would it even matter?

Sensing the readiness of his attack, Kazama/Rocket seized the monster, throwing an arm around it and restraining it, yanking one mass of tendrils beyond the back and crushing the throat with the force of their elbow.

"_Now_," they shouted, "whatever you are planning, do it _now_!"

Driving the barrels of the gun into Senkai's waist where the belt should be, Kurogane pulled the trigger without hesitation, the terrible thunder of the blast and the impact of the shells tearing away the vines that ensnared him, revealing the Fusion driver beneath, covered in sickening sap.

Brutally, he drove his hand forward, tearing the keys from the belt with a sharp snap. Almost immediately, the plant-like visage began to fall away, Senkai's armour itself unfolding to reveal the likeness of a dirt-stained man in his mid-20s, blue hair streaked with orange, a black shirt with a spiralling white helix etched upon it.

Taking the stolen keys, Kurogane Weiss slid them down into his own belt, that familiar rasping voice of the mechanism waking up once again.

'_Eve_! _Adam_! _Life Match_! _Armoured Hero Soul-Saver Reborn_!'

x

The four separate incarnations of Merlin Seno's armoured Magus form turned their wands towards the trembling creatures that had broken through the membrane between worlds, a tide of flame, dirt, water, and spirit energy igniting the air around them, arcane words upon their lips.

Hideous and unknowable, the insects screeched in agony, a shimmering wall rising up at their back once more as they struggled to retreat. And yet, none of the armoured mages gave them quarter, the continued assault of Merlin's combined forms crashing again and again to them, shattering bone and warping flesh.

The wall of mercury closed up, taking with it what was left of the remaining few creatures, and the images of Merlin's other forms dissipated as he passed his hand over the belt buckle once more and stepped free of his armour.

In his time, he had seen creatures more brutal yet had never seen anything as foul. Briefly, he wondered from what point in the future they had emerged, what place had birthed such hideousness. This dead world was cursed, he reflected, a place that no living thing should ever have crossed over to.

Beneath his breath, he again cursed Nimue. How many heroes, how many legends had ended up in this place because of her machinations?

"Merlin!" he heard his voice being called. "Merlin, come quick!"

He turned, a look of impatience on his face that slowly softened when he caught sight of the child that Genki carried in his arms.

"This girl is in danger; we need to get her out of here!"

Merlin's eyes narrowed.

"What kind of danger?"

"That crocodile thing, it, ah," Genki faltered, and his voice lowered, a look of terrible pain on his face, "it killed her brother, Merlin. It was working for some guy called Zackery Orion, she says, he says he's going to destroy the world!"

Merlin tightened his fists, his expression darkening, all thoughts of Nimue and the creatures that had assaulted them forgotten.

"Then we need to find this Zackery Orion," he growled, "and put an end to his evil ways!"

* * *

**A/N: ****Genki Tamashii created by Rider09 ~ **u/1938693

**Punk Rocket and Ryunosuke "Ryan" Kazama created by Kamen Rider Chrome ~ **u/676659

**Zackery Masayoshi Orion created by Lewamus Prime 2019 ~ **u/6878339

**Merlin Seno created by Timelordkid** ~ u/4006703

**Mashuto Senkai created by Kamen Rider Yokai** ~ u/4133255

**Josh McClain created by dannyrockon122** ~ u/5185539


	7. Chapter 7

**Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis**

"It's about time you all got here," said the young girl on the path, tapping her watch with a finger, straight dark hair, her eyebrows slightly unkempt, a small white button badge with a question mark appended to the right strap of her pinafore.

Zackery Orion and Josh McClain exchanged glances, Heuschrecke remaining hesitantly behind them, his greatcoat moving in the wind, his bandages changed and his wounds healing.

"You're late, you know," the girl said, no older surely than 13 or 14 at best, and yet the aura that emanated from her presence was impossible, a presence like no other living thing.

Orion's lips twisted in a sneer.

"And who the hell are you, kid?" he demanded.

With a look of distaste, Joan Smith lifted her wrist and tapped her watch again, an image of the solar system flickering into view in front of them, ten planets rotating in three dimensions.

"A traveller, just like you, Zackery," she remarked.

"How do you know my name?" he demanded.

Her gaze was steely and cold.

"I know your name because you've made my life incredibly difficult. I know all of your names," she turned and glared at each of them in turn, "but you are one of the ones I wasn't expecting here."

Orion shook his head with impatience.

"Kid, you better explain what the hell you're talking about or I'm going to get mad."

A dark expression crossed the child's face, and, for a moment, it seemed as if she was someone else, another child, an endless array of children, boys and girls, all with the same terrible expression.

"No, Zackery, you're not the one who will be getting mad," she said with a growl.

Orion rolled his eyes and reached down for his belt.

"That does it, I'm putting a stop to this."

"Zack, wait!" Josh cried out, reaching out for his new ally. "She's just a kid!"

Too late, Zackery Orion turned the card between his fingers and dropped his arm to his side, flashing it before the belt at his waist, triggering the fateful summoning of his own armour—and then something dreadful happened, a terrible aura rising up from the nothingness from whence his armour should have emerged, wrapping about his body, eating away at him as he struggled against it.

For a moment, Joan Smith's hair appeared ash white.

"I warned you, boy," she growled. "You try my patience. I have had enough of your meddling."

The darkness constrained and consumed him, cards spilling out from his belt and falling to the ground as the shadows ate him alive, carrying back to wherever it was that he had come from.

A long moment passed, and save for the discarded cards of his deck, there was nothing left of the Destroyer of worlds, nothing but the recollection of who he had once been.

"There," Joan smiled with satisfaction, turning her attention to Josh and Heuschrecke. "Now we can settle things and give this story the ending it deserves."

x

"So," Genki said, carrying the little girl in his arms, "what does this Zackery Orion dude look like, then?"

Jennifer McClain looked troubled.

"He's pretending to be my brother," she said.

A frown crossed Genki's face.

"He's pretending to be a kid?"

Jennifer shook her head.

"No, he's pretending to be a grown-up version of Josh." Tears formed in her eyes and her words faltered. "I-If he had lived, I mean."

"_Bastard_," Merlin growled, tightening his fists.

"Why would he do such a thing?" Genki asked, genuine hurt apparent on his face.

"He calls himself the Destroyer," Jennifer said, "he says he's going to end this world."

"We won't allow that," Merlin assured her, "trust me, whatever has happened here, we won't allow anyone, especially not this Orion or even Nimue to hurt the people who rest here."

But that was the problem, Genki thought quietly to himself; they hadn't _seen_ any other people.

"This place," he murmured.

"The Isle of Apples," Merlin murmured, "a resting place for the great, called Valhalla by some."

"That kid, Joan Smith, is she the guardian of this place?"

Merlin nodded.

"Nimue rules this realm, yes."

A frown crossed Genki's face as they walked through the wasteland, the fog all but smothering them.

"But she said she didn't know where this place was, said that the planets were all out of whack or whatever and that something was wrong here."

Merlin scowled with displeasure.

"It's a game," he growled. "I am not sure what her reasons are, yet, to me at least, it is clear that this place is the same place where I was imprisoned originally. This isn't freedom I have been granted, it's simply a bigger gaol. Surely you must realise that now, having encountered that crocodile _kajin_ and its hideous minions?"

Doubt remained on Genki's face.

"But why would she lie to us? What has she got to gain from it?" he asked.

"Who knows what goes on in her mind," Merlin said with exasperation. "Yet it seems clear to me that she has somehow manipulated the situation here, that she has brought this Zackery Orion here to taunt us. Whatever happens, we cannot let her have her way."

Around them, the fog seemed to clear, revealing more of the wasteland, its vast vista of emptiness, gravel pits and abandoned industrial areas. If there were heroes here, Genki thought, what sort of punishment must it be to inter them in a place like this?

Slowly, ahead of them, the fog continued to draw back, revealing a field of green grass and three distinct forms.

x

Panting, Mashuto Senkai dropped to his knees, trying to catch a breath, feeling the autumnal breeze of the dead world upon his face for the first time since his arrival. Turning his attention from the armoured form of Kazama/Rocket, resplendent somehow in their battered and dirty armour, to the new figure shrouded in immaculate white, he tried to understand what had happened.

The question must had been evident on his face as the masked rider offered a hand to him, pulling him up to his feet.

"Your keys were poisoned," he advised, "no doubt by the Authoress herself. I have purified them. I suggest you have your belt run a scan of what remains and see to it that you are not consumed by evil forces once more."

Senkai looked at him with a frown.

"Wait, you're the guy who was trying to kill us, right?"

"My name is Kurogane, yes," the other nodded seriously.

"Aren't you going to get in trouble with your mistress for helping us?" he asked.

There was silence as Kurogane Weiss looked away.

"I have defected," he said quietly.

"Good," Kazama/Rocket said, "that means we can work together to get out of here."

Kurogane regarded both men, his expression unreadable behind his white mask.

"You two may leave whenever you want. You were not…" His words trailed off. "You were not _invited_ here by the Authoress; this place has no claim over you."

Senkai eyed him dubiously.

"And what about you?" he asked.

"I was drawn to this place by the Authoress's remit, by the terms of her pact with Death. I remember this now."

"Wait, _what_?" Senkai demanded.

Kurogane nodded, shedding his new armour, revealing his troubled expression.

"With Death, yes," he answered. "The Authoress is a terrible sorceress, one capable of bargaining and bartering with Death itself. In the oldest days, before the first gods and heroes had fallen, when Saturn still served as the sun, the Authoress challenged Death to a game and won, gaining dominion over this place, called the Isle of Apples by some, Avalon by others."

"What game did they play?" Kazama/Rocket asked, likewise disengaging their armour.

Kurogane Weiss looked troubled.

"_Space Invaders_," he said quietly.

"_What_?!" Senkai all but screeched.

Kurogane nodded.

"Before time had settled into a linear pattern, Death and the Authoress played _Space Invaders_ to decide the fate of this realm. The Authoress won, achieving a higher score, and Death was thus bound to give her control over this place as long as she remained her also and paid Death their due."

Senkai shook his head.

"That's absurd, man," he said with incredulity. "That's _absolutely_ absurd."

"It is the way of things," Kurogane answered. "Yet now she is troubled for Death has cheated her, opening doorways in her realm for the living, manipulating old Saturn to send forth his champion."

There was silence amongst the group for a moment.

"So how do we defeat a being that plays games with Death?" Kazama/Rocket asked.

Kurogane shook his head.

"You can't," he answered simply. "You need to leave this place. This isn't your fight."

Mashuto Senkai grinned, his entire face lighting up at this.

"I've never turned my back on a fair fight," he smiled.

"Idiot," Kurogane growled, "this isn't a fair fight. The Authoress controls this realm; she can just as easily imagine you out of existence as she can poison your armour and turn it against you or send her Royal Guard to hunt you down. All you are doing by remaining here is putting yourself in danger."

"Wait, who are this Royal Guard and why haven't we seen them yet?" Senkai asked.

"You will," Kurogane growled. "They are her servants. They were… they were my friends."

"All the more reason why we can't leave you here to fight her yourself," Kazama/Rocket protested.

"You can contribute nothing," Kurogane advised, slinging his shotgun over his shoulder and turning away, "she has already made a mistake by allowing me to regain my recollection, my true armour. Your work here is done. You can do nothing more."

He looked into the fog back to where his motorbike was parked, and, in the distance, he saw two figures emerging, one of them carrying a child in his arms.

Instinctively, both Kurogane and Kazama/Rocket reached for their belts.

x

"Take the cards," she smiled, watching as he gazed down at the only thing that remained of Zackery Orion. "See what happens."

Josh McClain hesitated, consumed with doubt. It wasn't that he had especially liked Orion, but in the short time he had known him, he had learnt to respect him—and now he was gone, swallowed up by whatever void this child had summoned, cost out to who knew where.

"You can't do this," Heuschrecke growled, tensing himself, his arms crossed at his waist, "I won't _let _you do this!"

Joan Smith turned sharply to regard him.

"Hmm, one never quite likes to be confronted by one's failures."

She snapped her fingers, and, without willing it, the armour burst from the man's belt, swallowing him as surely as the darkness had consumed Orion.

From within the writhing mass of flesh, Josh could hear the other man screaming, crying out in horror as his own armour devoured him, turning inwards and eating him alive. He glanced down at the scattered cards at his feet.

Joan smiled.

"Do it," she said, "take the cards and transform, assume your place at my side."

"L-Let him go," Josh stammered. "You let him go first, then I'll do what you say."

The young girl arched an eyebrow.

"Why?" she asked. "He won't thank me for it."

Josh's face turned pale, bile rising in his throat.

"What do you think is happening in there?" she asked. "And what do you think will happen if I command it to stop? How will you save your comrade when he's been half eaten?"

Heuschrecke's screams continued to fill the air, echoing through the emptiness of the realm, until, after a while, they were joined by another sound, the sound of bones breaking, of flesh dissolving, and, slowly, the shape of the man began to collapse inwards, folding into itself until it abruptly lost shape and sank into the dirt with a sickening thud, decaying with such terrible speed that soon there was nothing left to remind Josh that it had ever once been a man.

In the space of moments, Josh McClain had lost two comrades.

"Pick up the cards," Joan commanded and then yawned, "I'm growing tired of telling you what to do, Josh, really I am."

Hesitantly, he crouched down, gathering Orion's cards up from the darkness that had been left by his sudden removal from the realm. With trembling hands, he turned over the first card in the scattered collection and looked down upon the depiction of a familiar armour, two weapons holstered at his side, a bright orange gun on the right side and the handle of a Virtua Stick on the left, his shoulders decorated with gentle grey depictions the planet Saturn.

Seemingly, as if sensing his presence, the card transformed into a boxy cartridge, the width of which might easily fit into the slot that ran along the side of the transformation bracer worn upon his wrist.

Joan Smith grinned darkly.

"You know what to do, Josh. I suspect you've always known," she purred.

And he had, even when he had been there on Rhea, in the future, he had known there was a reason the other man, the man who had raised from a boy, had never removed his armour.

"Do it," she whispered.

He swallowed hard, and then, with trembling hands, he slid the remainder of the cards into his back pocket and gingerly brought the cartridge up to his bracer, pushing back the opening and gently inserting it within.

There was a flash of light and Joshua McClain was changed forever.

x

Through the fog, they saw three figures standing stoic on the grass—a man in immaculate white armour, swollen eyes protruding from the helm like some ancient, unknowable creature from the depths of some sickly ocean, a boy in his mid-20s, dressed in loose trowsers and black dress shoes, his eyes a curious shade of orange, and, at last, a third man in a tired leather jacket and worn boots, helm decorated with the Union flag, chains hanging loose from the jacket.

"Looks like they laid on a welcoming party," Merlin said with displeasure, pushing back the folds of his jacket to reveal the belt buckle once more.

"Any of these guys look familiar to you, Jennifer?" Genki asked with apprehension.

She nodded and sniffled.

"T-They're the servants of the man pretending to be my brother, his Royal Guard, he calls them," she said meekly, her voice small and full of doubt.

Genki felt his heart breaking in his chest.

Who would do this, he thought; who would do this to a little kid?

Merlin Seno slipped a ring upon his finger and passed his hand before the buckle. He said nothing but Genki could feel the fury radiating from him, the righteous anger that consumed him.

With a snap of his fingers and a shimmer of light, he extended his arm, that now familiar sigil blistering into existence at the contact between belt and ring.

'_Golem_,' the aged buckle called out, and, for a moment, Merlin Seno stood superimposed upon that arcane symbol before the shape of it consumed him, drowning him in its mystical glow.

When he emerged, he was hidden completely, dirt brown accents in the lens of the mask and upon the breastplate, a hood that connected to a billowing cloak covering most of the helm.

With a twist of his hand, he moved the ring over the buckle again.

'_Excite_!' it announced with enthusiasm.

Ahead of them, he saw the gathered strangers tense, those in armour stepping forward ahead of the man who had yet to transform.

The wind gathered stirring the blades of grass between them, and then, with effortlessly grace, Merlin Seno threw his left arm out towards them, palm facing them, the silver ring on his finger glistening with illumination.

"Way of Blessing number 45!" he called out. "Promethean Chains!"

With enthusiasm, the buckle at his waist conceded, calling out a single word:

'_Bind_!'

From _godspace_, arcane chains burst forth, lashing out primarily at the foremost of the figures—yet effortlessly, the white armoured other deflected them, sending them snaking back and striking the earth. At their back, the third of the strangers pulled two cartridges from his belt, a look of hesitation playing across his face.

Undeterred by the failure of his first attack, Merlin advanced still, pushing his advantage against the two armoured figures, pawns, he had been assured, of the Destroyer. With an explosion of magical energy, he slammed his fists forward, smashing both of them into the chest of the figure in white armour and sending him staggering back.

With equal speed, he turned upon the other rider, trading punches, parrying blows, grunting with displeasure as the other brought his head back and slammed it forward in a brutal head butt that rattled his teeth in his jaw.

Again, he slid his hand over the buckle of his belt.

'_Phoenix_,' the machine cried out, and the accents of his armour turned from brown to red.

The white armoured man advanced and Merlin lashed out, his fist leaving a scorch mark of black across the other's chest and eliciting a cry of pain.

"Wait!" the only one of their number still untransformed cried out. "Wait, man, we don't have to fight!"

"I don't care who you are or what you have to say," Merlin growled, "if you've signed a pact with Nimue, then you're the enemy!"

He pulled his fist back, and, with surprising speed, with surprising strength, the young man seized hold of his arm and held him in check.

"We're _not_ your enemies," he shouted, "there's no point in fighting amongst ourselves, trust me, dude, I learnt that the hard way."

From behind his mask, Merlin Seno regarded the other with a sense of dispassion. What had he been like at age 25, he asked himself, had he been this brash, this bold? Angrily, he shook free of the boy's grasp but did not resume his attack.

"_Explain_," he snarled.

"My name's Senkai, Mashuto Senkai. We were all tricked. Some of us were summoned here, some of us came here by accident. There's an evil presence here, something pretending to be a little girl, she's setting us up against each other. You have to believe me."

"Nimue," Merlin said coldly.

The white armoured figure nodded his ascent.

"That is one of her names. Yet I have always known her as the Authoress."

The autumnal wind stirred about them.

"Looks like things are going to get serious," Tamashii Genki said, advancing slowly.

Gently, he made to set the child in his arms down and stumbled forward, almost falling on his face when he realised there was nothing there.

In confusion, he looked up, his eyes wide and full of panic. The fog parted. With folded arms and a cruel glare, Joan Smith, her hair now ash white, looked upon the gathered group, a man in black armour at her side.

"How nice it is to see everyone getting to know each other," she beamed. "Of course, I haven't come here empty handed either."

She turned to present the figure at her side, waving her hands in silent fanfare.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, may I introduce you to Joshua McClain, better known as Armoured Hero Saturn."

She laughed, a thin, high, reedy sound that cut through the emptiness of that dead world.

"Joshua," she said, the smile fading from her lips, "be a dear and exterminate these insects."

As if in a dream, Josh McClain reached down and drew the Virtua Stunner from its holster, lifting it slowly up, and then, just as slowly, turned it on the Authoress.

"I don't think so," he said, his voice full of resolve.

The wind grew angry then, gathering up the leaves of the trees and casting them about in fury.

"I was worried something like this might happen," the Authoress said with his displeasure, her lips twitching in distaste. "I suppose I will have to resolve this myself then."

From her pinafore, she drew forth a single makeup brush, its handle made of shimmering silver, almost as if it were fashioned from mercury.

With passion, with compunction, she lifted the brush to her face, and her small, thin lips uttered those ancient devastating words:

'_Magi Magie Moonlight Makeup_!'

Light flashed, petals fell from the blossom, and with the chime of bells, the Authoress transformed.

* * *

**A/N: ****Genki Tamashii created by Rider09 ~ **u/1938693

**Punk Rocket and Ryunosuke "Ryan" Kazama created by Kamen Rider Chrome ~ **u/676659

**Zackery Masayoshi Orion created by Lewamus Prime 2019 ~ **u/6878339

**Merlin Seno created by Timelordkid** ~ u/4006703

**Mashuto Senkai created by Kamen Rider Yokai** ~ u/4133255

**Josh McClain created by dannyrockon122** ~ u/5185539


	8. Chapter 8

**This Unabating Wakefulness**

'_Magi Magie Moonlight Makeup_!'

Light flashed, petals fell from the blossom, and with the chime of bells, her feet lifted from the ground, dancing on moonbeams as she turned, her radiant hair splayed out around her, ribbons emerging from _godspace_, her makeup brush transformed into a wand tipped with crystal, armour of lace and satin wrapping about her as stardust and refracted rainbows emanated from her being, the warm, rose red glow of immense spiritual power radiating outward from her being.

Her white ankle boots, bejewelled and decorated with pearls, landed upon the grass once more, and she turned to regard Josh, her ash white hair shimmering and lustrous.

"I hope you can appreciate my disappointment, Joshua," she said softly.

With a cry of anger, Merlin charged, leaning into the wind as he closed the distance between him and the figure of the girl, her face away from him, her eyes set solely on Josh McClain. At his feet, the soil churned, his fists blistering with phoenix fire as he pulled back his arm—and was thrown backwards through the air, crashing into the dirt behind Genki.

The Authoress remained with her back towards them, her attention focused solely on Josh.

"I spent a long time arranging for your transformation into Armoured Hero Saturn and this is how you replay me?"

"Y-You're not Jennifer," Josh whispered, regarding her fearfully from behind his black visor.

She smiled softly.

"There never was a Jennifer. I invented that memory for you."

Angrily, Merlin pulled himself up from the ground.

"I'm not done yet!" he shouted, sliding each of the four rings onto his hand.

The belt stirred into life once more and from his robes, he took out a final golden ring.

'_Phoenix_.'

'_Djinn_.'

'_Golem_.'

'_Leviathan_.'

Deftly, he slipped the ring onto the index finger of his other hand, then passed that over the belt's buckle.

'_Grand Ziz_!' the machine cried out with jubilation.

From about him, it seemed as if the shadows of his other forms flickered into existence, converging about him in the manner that Orion's armour had once done. The sigil of his ancient calling flashed brightly, brilliantly upon the ground, the whisper of voices chanting in that old angelic language, Enochian script carved into the soil at his feet—and then Merlin Seno cast his arm out, dispensing of the illusions, revealing himself in armour of glittering gold and darkest shadow, the facsimile of all his other forms presented as mere facets of this new armour.

Tamashii Genki drew forth the tuning fork again from his pocket and glanced in Senkai's direction.

"We better get moving, little bud, or we're going to be left out," he said with a grin, striking the fork against his leg, flames ignited, his armour called forth, not entirely dissimilar from that which Kazama had once wore, yet distinct in its serpentine design, the helm transformed into the likeness of a dragon, a suggestion of his familial crest.

Hesitantly, suddenly plagued with doubt, Mashuto Senkai looked down at the belt about his waist, remembering the horror of the Creeper Weed, its consumption of his very being, vines wrapped about him. Doubt consumed him, the sudden fear that he would once more be eaten alive by the keys he had been given, that somehow all of them had been poisoned—

—_"__The keys adapt, they transform," Atsumi said clearly, her hands folded before her, the vast white emptiness of the digital space around them. "It would be remiss for Demonseed Innovators to bring to market a product line without durability, thus any attempt to mod or otherwise hack the keys you hold in your hands will result in resistance, the mechanism learning from attempts to exploit perceived weaknesses will result in the mechanism learning and adapting in kind."_

_Doubtfully, Senkai turned over the key in the palm of his hand, silver and red, the words '_Illusion Fox_' clearly marked upon its side._

_ "__What if it's out of reach of the satellite?" he asked, lifting his eyes to regard her, her simple grey uniform, her dark, bobbed hair. She was not exactly unattractive, he thought in that moment, and for a brief second he tried to imagine what a relationship between them would be like, what romancing a gynoid would mean, and even more, what it would say about him._

_Blushing suddenly, he pushed the thought from his mind._

_ "__The satellite is not required for the keys to learn and adapt," Atsumi responded, oblivious to his secret considerations of her form. "Of course, it is beneficial to maintain contact with the satellite so that all knowledge can be collated and incorporated into the database, yet the keys are capable of independently learning."_

_He looked down at the key for a moment longer, considered this, and then shrugged._

_ "__Well, I guess that solves that, then," he remarked._ —

—From the pockets of his trowsers, he brought forth two keys, sliding them one after the other into the belt, the machine stirring into life.

'_Flying Falcon! Authorise! Blazing Tiger! Authorise!_'

From his waist, light shone forth, the insubstantial shapes of a falcon and a tiger momentarily glimpsed before him as the mechanism of his complex belt rendered the blood red and purple armour about, sheets of metal gliding together, disguising his grubby clothing and dirt-stained face, transforming him once more into an armoured hero.

'_Firestorm Gryphon_!' the belt's voice announced, and then stuttered, the display flickering in an obvious glitch. '_oh shit whaddup_!'

"Hmm, might need to work on that," Senkai muttered with disapproval.

With disdain, the Authoress turned her attention from Josh, her hair sweeping behind her as she faced them, the whisper of ancient starlight about her. She regarded each of them in turn, Merlin, Kurogane, Kazama/Rocket, Genki, and Senkai, and her expression remained cold, indifferent.

"You boys are distracting me," she announced, eyeing Kurogane especially, "and I expected better of you, to be honest."

With a wave of her hand, a wall of mercury sprung up from which emerged four armoured warriors, their helms decorated with antlers, their white armour arrayed in gemstones; emerald, amethyst, topaz, lapis lazuli.

"C3! _Dáinn_!" cried the first, unsheathing his sword, emeralds glittering on its hilt.

"C6! _Dvalinn_!" cried the second, pulling forth a staff decorated with amethysts from his back.

"F3! _Duneyrr_!" announced the third, pulling an arrow fashioned from topaz from his quiver and drawing back the string of his bow.

"F6! _Duraþrór_!" called the last, drawing forth four playing cards and tossing them to the ground, watching as each one transformed into a tiny little robot shaped from lapis lazuli.

"Harts there are also four," they cried in unison, "which from its summits, arch-necked, gnaw. _Dâinn_ and _Dvalinn_, _Duneyrr_ and _Duraþrór_!"

Behind them, the silver faded, revealing the shape of the Authoress once more, Josh McClain at her back.

Hesitantly, Kazama/Rocket glanced in Genki's direction.

"What is up with these guys?" he murmured.

"The four harts," Kurogane growled, "the Authoress's Royal Guard."

"I thought you might have forgotten us, Kurogane," Dáinn growled, hefting his sword up and glowering at the other man from behind the brilliant green of the two swollen omnilens that decorated his helm.

Kurogane shook his head.

"I haven't forgot you, no," he murmured, "I just hoped I would never see you again."

Behind the four figures, the Authoress sighed and rolled her eyes.

"I tire of this," she remarked, lifting her hand, "we need somewhere quieter to talk, Joshua."

She glanced in the direction of her four knights, then at the assembled group they faced, and shook her head with displeasure. There was a moment in which no one moved, and then she snapped her fingers—

x

—and they were elsewhere, the two of them still arrayed in their glamour, sat at the back of the 144 bus between Muswell Hill Broadway and Turnpike Lane bus station.

She turned to regard Josh, trees in autumn glimpsed outside the window at his shoulder.

"Joshua," she said softly, turning away and looking at the empty seats before her. "I wonder if you understand the importance of who you are."

Behind the black mask, Josh McClain was silent.

"I understand that you lied to me," he announced, his voice firm yet devoid of anger.

"And yet by now, you must understand that you were also complicit, yes?"

There was silence between them for a moment.

"You mean that I have always been Saturn?" he asked.

She smiled but did not return her gaze to him.

"_Whoso keepes the fig-tree shall eat the fruit thereof_," she said aloud.

He did not challenge her, did not question the meaning of her words, and yet he remained glaring at her, watching her as she, in turn, watched the emptiness of the silent bus crawled along the curve of Greater London's northwardly outskirts.

"Why wasn't I told the truth?" he asked after a moment.

She waited a heartbeat.

"I was worried it would consume you. What is that Robert Caro quote about how power reveals your true intent? _Once you get power, then you see it, what he really wanted to do_. I was worried that the intent of a child with such power would prove too great for any of us."

"So you waited?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I waited until you were old enough, until I knew you had received the proper tutelage."

"And now I have this power, what do you want me to do?"

She was silent again, and then, at last she sighed and shrugged.

"I don't know. Destroy this place for starters."

He looked aghast at her.

"B-But this is your realm?" he protested.

She scoffed.

"It's a prison just as much for me as it is for Merlin. I thought I was so clear, cheating Death, but, in the end, all I brought was isolation. This is no place for stories. This," she said and gestured at the silent autumn beyond the window, "this is a vacuum."

x

Kazama/Rocket stepped forward, cracking the knuckles of their worn leather gloves.

"Guess I'll start this one off," they remarked from behind their Union flag bedecked helm.

"This isn't your fight," Kurogane growled, "they are _my_ foes."

Kazama/Rocket shrugged.

"She summoned them here to deal with _all_ of us. I figure I've got just as much say in this as any of you."

Without waiting for them to complete their conversation, Dvalinn abruptly launched himself forward, staff turning through the air as he rotated his body and stepped forward, driving the amethyst tipped weapon forward and causing Kazama/Rocket to throw up their arms to block the blow.

Kurogane took a step forward and stopped, a topaz arrow thudding in the ground at his feet. He looked up to see Duneyrr glowering back at him.

"Wait your turn, old man," the other snarled.

Dvalinn lifted himself up into the air, pirouetting, spinning his staff about and slamming into Kazama/Rocket again and again, a growl of displeasure rising from them with each fresh impact.

Beneath the unusual armour, itself the result of the fleeting temporary consumption of Kazama's soul by Punk Rocket, the two men struggled to hold their ground, managing at last to jump back out of the way of Dvalinn's whirlwind attack for just long enough to regain their senses, duck beneath another blow, and bring their right fist up in a devastating uppercut that caught the newcomer beneath the chin, lifting him from the ground.

Mashuto Senkai glanced at Kurogane, Genki, and Merlin, smiling mischievously beneath his mask.

"That's my cue," he shouted, sprinting suddenly forward and launching himself into the air, purple and red light spinning out from him like a secondary set of wings as he leapt over Kazama/Rocket's head.

'_Dual Impact_!' the belt announced as he closed the distance between him and Dvalinn, flames igniting as both feet slammed into the other's chest once, twice, and their enemy was thrown backwards, tearing up the ground as his entire being was consumed in the flames of Senkai's attack.

Staggering, clutching his wounded side, the warrior with the amethyst tipped staff tried to steady himself and then dropped to one knee, his armoured likeness scorched and burnt. Shakily, he rose to his feet only for Dáinn to restrain him.

"I thought I told you no more messing around," Kazama/Rocket said with displeasure.

Senkai shrugged.

"Guess I forgot," he smirked.

Abruptly, he twisted, sensing danger, narrowing dodging an arrow as it sailed past him and was swallowed up in the fog.

"I see you whelps aren't good with manners," Duneyrr growled, readying his bow once more.

"It's not a case of manners," Genki called out, drawing his guitar from his back with one hand and pushing Senkai back with the other, "it's about getting this over with as quickly as possible. None of us here have time to waste on you guys, and we've all got a bone to pick with your mistress."

"In that case," Duneyrr snapped, pulling back the bowstring once more, "you'll have to—"

His head was thrown suddenly back as Merlin flashed into existence beside him, smashing the back of his fist into his mask and sending him flying back.

"Way of Blessing number 26! Brush of Apollo's Cloak!" Merlin shouted, a fireball igniting in the palm of his hand tossed outward with the flick of his wrist.

Angrily, Duneyrr twisted and struck the blistering ball of flames away, sending it out at an angle where it burnt up into nothing before it touched the ground.

"You three certainly have high opinions of yourself," the archer remarked, and then turned to regard Kurogane, "and you, I thought better of you, siding with these ruffians against our mistress."

Kurogane Weiss let out a grunt.

"_Our mistress_," he mockingly said, "has been lying to me about my past."

"Or perhaps you've been lying to yourself," Dáinn remarked.

Kurogane tensed, a sudden fear overcoming him. Slowly, he turned away from the four knights and saw, standing amongst his new colleagues, another with his own likeness, dressed in a smart white suit and grinning cheerfulness.

"Hello," the other version of him remarked, his cadence and speech so utterly different from Kurogane's own. "You ready to come home now, Weiss?"

x

"Don't you own this world?" Josh asked with confusion. "Don't you have some kind of responsibility to it?"

Again, the Authoress sighed.

"Yes and no," she murmured, resting her arms on the chair in front of her. "It _is_ mine in that I won it in a game of skill but it's also a burden. Merlin thinks I incarcerated him here as some sort of wicked scheme to steal away his power, but, in truth, as much as I disliked him back then, I simply didn't want to be left here by myself."

A sudden anger seized Josh.

"And so you changed my future? For that you changed _my _future? You played these games with all these people because, what, you were lonely?"

She looked at him, confused as to why he would be angry.

"Yes," she answered simply, "if anyone is going to understand what it's like to be trapped somewhere haunted by yourself it should be you, Josh."

"But _you_ did this to me," Josh retorted angrily, "you stole my childhood from me! You made me believe I had let a sister I didn't even have die."

"_He that waits on his master shall be __honoured_," she remarked with a playful grin.

Reaching back, he lifted the helm from his head, shaking his hair free and looking at the young girl sitting beside him with a mixture of frustration and anger.

"I want to go back," he said firmly.

"And do what?" she asked, not turning to look at him.

"I don't belong here," he said, and then quietly added, "I don't belong with you. You're not my sister."

She was quiet for a moment.

"You will do great things, Josh."

A chill ran down his spine.

x

A chill ran down his spine.

"Yes," the other grinned, "I'm exactly who you all think I am."

He turned from the Royal Guard to the gathered heroes, to Senkai, to Genki, to Merlin, to Kazama/Rocket and Kurogane. And with a sigh, he gestured with his hand.

"I'm Death, you guys. Christ, you're slow on the uptake."

The fog seemed to thin, pale rays of sunlight touching them, affording, for the first time, a view of that world, its vast horizon of emptiness, its endless gravel pits and warehouses, its lonely, uninhabited cities.

"A-Are you here for us?" Genki murmured softly.

Death shook his head.

"Weiss notwithstanding, no, I'm not here for you. I'm here for this world."

"We won't let you take him," Senkai said, suddenly full of determination.

Death offered the boy a sour look.

"Oh, do behave. Haven't you worked out who he is yet?"

There was silence for the longest time.

"_Guys_," Death said with exasperation, "Weiss is me. We're the same person."

Senkai turned to ask Kurogane a question and realised that he was no longer amongst their number.

"W-What happened? What did you do?" Kazama/Rocket demanded.

Death shrugged.

"I took him back into myself, absorbed him, I guess you could say." He looked around at the endless vistas of nothingness, the lonely, empty expanse of a realm deserted by its caretaker. "And now, I shall take this place also."

He smiled and offered them a wink.

"Whilst the cat's away and all that."

"Wait, what will happen to us?" Merlin demanded, suddenly anxious, as if being separated from the realm he had been trapped in for so very long, the world he wished to be free of, would somehow render his struggle meaningless, pointless.

Death shrugged, and there was a sudden shift, the Royal Guard absent, the bitter taste of black sand on the wind, the endless nothingness of the lonely Sands of Time.

"Each to their own place," Death remarked.

"Wait, we don't belong here!" Genki cried out in alarm.

Again, Death shrugged, and then gestured to a shredded jacket decorated with red flames laying abandoned nearby.

"Oh, look, someone else has been here before you, another visitor to your world. Maybe if you hurry, you can catch up with him."

Kazama/Rocket looked from the abandoned jacket to the man with Kurogane's face.

"I hope we never meet again," he growled.

Death smiled patiently.

"We will," he remarked.

And with that, he was gone, leaving the gathered heroes alone in the bitter wind and the endless dunes of the Sands of Time.

* * *

**A/N: ****Genki Tamashii created by Rider09 ~ **u/1938693

**Punk Rocket and Ryunosuke "Ryan" Kazama created by Kamen Rider Chrome ~ **u/676659

**Zackery Masayoshi Orion created by Lewamus Prime 2019 ~ **u/6878339

**Merlin Seno created by Timelordkid** ~ u/4006703

**Mashuto Senkai created by Kamen Rider Yokai** ~ u/4133255

**Josh McClain created by dannyrockon122** ~ u/5185539


	9. Chapter 9

**Epilogue**

There was a story that Saturn had once ruled the skies. In this place—beyond the end of the universe, beyond the haunting, disembodied voices that the people of Earth had long since become—he could remember the first time he heard the tale, the vastness of the great planet illuminating what was left of the cosmos after the fall of everything.

Standing upon the surface of Rhea, the young man ahead of him looked out upon the sky, the stars so very different from those he had known in childhood. Dressed in a simple black shirt and blue jeans, his black baseball boots worn with age, the clothes he wore seemed oddly out of place, quaint reminders of the time he had lived in, the life that had been his before the collapse of everything.

"A penny for your thoughts, young man?" he asked as he approached, the softness of his step startling the boy.

When he turned with more than a little surprise upon his face, the older man was consumed by momentary nostalgia, remembering who he had been, where he had come from—and what this young man was now about to experience.

Hesitantly, the boy smiled gently, still slightly ill-at-ease in the presence of his mentor.

"I was just thinking—" he stopped himself, trying to find the right words, "I was just thinking if there was another way."

Behind his mask, the older man regarded the child with sorrow.

"Not now," he said sadly, "not now things have progressed this far. Had not the Destroyer become involved, then perhaps things would not have necessitated your involvement, but now time is askew and we cannot turn a blind eye to this."

The boy nodded, the frustration clear on his face, and the older man thought then that if things had been different, if they weren't so constrained—yet quickly he pushed the thought to the back of his mind; all stories have an ending, just all stories must have a beginning.

If things had been different, he never would have become Saturn himself.

The boy nodded sadly, already having known the answer before he had even voiced his doubts.

"When should I leave?"

Beneath the dark armour, his mentor seemed to shrug.

"_When_ is irrelevant. Leave when you feel you are ready, Joshua; now, tomorrow, one year from now, a decade from now—it matters not, you will still arrive at the same point in the past regardless of when you depart this place."

"I guess so," he murmured, not fully convinced.

Saturn was silent, unreadable, waiting in silence, the colossal sight of the burning planet named after him in the distant sky over his head.

Sadly, he brought his right arm up, the smooth silver of the device bound to his wrist glittering with lights upon its display. He swallowed hard, and then, at last, said the words, more than a little sadness in his voice.

"It's morphin' time!"

The light above Saturn's head seemed suddenly to burn that much brighter.

"_Cronus Power_!"

About him, light seemed to gather, the device upon his wrist drawing time and space in, warping it, writing the tale of the universe's history anew. In the brilliance of that illumination, young Josh McClain never saw the figure standing quietly behind the man he assumed to be his mentor, no taller than a child, no older in looks than a girl, 13 or 14 at best, the long sleeves of the charcoal jacket she wore, several sizes too large for her, hiding the soft skin of her hands completely, the countless tattoos that covered her arms, running all the way up to her shoulders.

Time shifted silently and brilliantly, and, in an instant, he was gone.

* * *

**A/N: ****Josh McClain created by dannyrockon122** ~ u/5185539


	10. Chapter 10

**Moon**

Time shifted silently and brilliantly, and in an instant, he was gone, shocked into wakefulness from the dream and filled with anxiety, his eyes wild with fear and panic. With terrified movements, he threw open the curtain of his makeshift tent and stumbled outwards onto the dark sand and into the pale moonlight, his face marked with a downy beard, his bare chest stained by perspiration.

How long had he been here, he asked himself; how long had he been alone in this wilderness between worlds, this ghostly void between times? He shook his head, clutching at his matted hair, letting out a low moan. A month, a year, a _decade_? Is this what he was now, is this what his life amounted to, out here in the wilderness, living off _womp rats_, cowering from the sun during the day, turning the leaves of vast barbary trees into canvas? And every night, he was haunted by the shadow, that dark figure seen on the horizon in the moonlight, milk white moonlight glistening upon benighted dark armour.

Just a dream, he told himself; just a dream. There were no more armoured heroes, not anymore, and even if there were, who would remember him now? He had been nothing but a young man passing by, trapped in the game of a cruel opponent when he had strayed too far from the path; all that he was had vanished the moment he had been stupid enough to let his emotions guide him. And now he was here, lost in the desert at the end of the world. Alone.

A light caught him, so bright that it overpowered the moon, and he threw his arm up above his face, thinking that somewhere, a star had ignited in the velvet sky above. A sudden roar of sound filled the air, the thunderous cry of engines powered by imagination, the weight of such noise driving him to his knees in the sand. He felt hot air billowing over him, the light passing, examining his pitiful camp, and he threw his head back, crying out in fear, eyes wide with panic—and then abruptly stopped, realising the moon was obscured, that there was a shape in the sky above him, complex and fashioned by human hands.

_A ship_, he realised with terrified awe.

From the rear of the vessel, the cargo bay doors opened with a terrible, grinding lack of urgency, yet slowly he saw two figures emerge, the light from the ship's interior washing over them, obscuring the details of their appearance. But they were real, he told himself, at least they seemed real, more real than the vision of that figure in dark armour.

"We've been looking a long time for you, boy."

The first figure was short and stout, their entire body clad in well-worn battle armour of aged iron and leather, face hidden by a featureless grey helmet, a thin line of black allowing the owner to gaze out on the world from within.

"Query: You are certain this is the individual we are searching for?"

The second figure was tall and gaunt, skeletal almost, constructed out of an unfamiliar and untarnished metal drenched in matte black paint.

The first grunted but made no direct response, heavy boots hammering against the ramp of the cargo hold until they were standing directly above him, looking down from the thin black visor in their helmet.

"Do you know who we are?" they growled, and it took him a moment to realise that the helmet was distorting their voice, making it impossible to identify them.

"Statement: He clearly does not," the robant playfully remarked, hefting a vast rifle from off of its shoulder and making a show of pulling back the bolt and loading the weapon.

Hesitantly eyeing the machine's rifle, he shook his head.

"Name's Amphinomus," the armoured figure announced, and then jerked their head towards the robant, "and this laser-brain is Vicious #349904."

He nodded slowly.

"Good to meet you."

The other laughed heartily, spitefully, the sound warped through the distortion of their helmet.

"No, it's not, trust me." They paused, regarding the ragged looking castaway from behind their helm. "Do you know what our profession is?"

"N-No," he was forced to answer bitterly.

"We're bounty hunters," Amphinomus advised him coldly, "and someone's put out a pretty big bounty on your head."

The armoured figure jumped down from the ship's cargo hold, shoving him out of the way as they glowered out at the endless dunes of dark sand beneath the unseen moon.

"Of course, we didn't think we'd have to come all the way out here to cash in on that bounty." Another laugh, and they turned to him, their stance menacing. "You better be worth what they say you are."

He watched them, wild-eyed, trying to shape words in his mouth, trying to understand what was happening to him.

"Statement," the machine announced, its metallic tone almost mirthful, "he wants to know how much he's worth."

"N-No, I don't," he said, suddenly panicked.

The figure in the helmet turned to glare at him.

"A lot," they stated.

They reached up for their helm, and with a snap-hiss, released the locks, pulling it off to reveal a face with a warm complexion, long dark hair loose but for a single braid adorned with a silver clip.

"We've been waiting a long time to meet you," they smiled coldly, "Zackery Orion."

* * *

**A/N: ****Zackery Masayoshi Orion created by Lewamus Prime 2019 ~ **u/6878339


	11. Chapter 11

**So Falls the World**

The water was hot against his skin. For the longest moment, he simply stood there beneath the shower, face lifted upwards into the descending water, feeling it wash over his face, over his broad-shoulders and defined chest.

He felt the dirt pour off him, the water at the bottom of the cubicle turning black with grains of sand, and he wondered how long it had been since he felt like this—and how long it had been since he had left home.

Hastily, he supressed that thought, pushing it down, trying not to dwell on it. It would do him no good thinking of his parents, his siblings, thinking of those he cared for, all that mattered right now was finding out where he was, what was happening, and how he could get back. Once he was on Earth again, he could worry about his family.

Only they weren't going to Earth, Amphinomus had made that resoundingly clear. They were heading for some place called Electric Town on a world designated ko426, or so he was told. He laughed at this, shaking his head as he stepped out of the shower and began to towel himself dry. Another world, he thought. When he first inherited the powers of the Destroyer, he had struggled to imagine other heroes like himself, let alone whole other worlds. But a lot had changed since then, he reflected grimly. He tightened one fist, throwing the towel over his shoulder and pulling back the door to his quarters and abruptly panicking at the sight of the tall robant waiting for him.

"Reassurance: Do not be concerned," the machine offered in its flat tone, "I have no interest in your anatomy."

Hastily, Orion covered himself with the towel, glaring fiercely at the skeletal machine standing in his quarters.

"Statement: My partner requested I deliver this."

It turned and gestured towards the flight suit and accompanying armour piled up on the edge of the cot.

"You could have left a note," Orion said angrily.

The robant tilted its head.

"Statement: Subject is experiencing an emotional response to stimuli."

"You're damn right I'm having an emotional response," Zack said, raising his voice. "I know next to nothing about you people. You just fly in here, tell me there's a price on my head, but you're going to waive that if I agree to come on some job with you, and then you leave me in here with no clue as to where we're going, what this job is."

"Pacification: My apologies, sir. All things will be answered in time."

"_Now _would be a good time," Orion angrily replied.

"Request: Please dress yourself and join us in the cockpit. We have much to show you."

Without waiting for a response, the machine turned, its clawed feet clattering against the cold metal floors as it pushed against the door release and disappeared into the corridor, leaving Orion alone again in his quarters. With a grunt, he cast the towel off and strode towards the bed, pulling out the flight suit and stepping into it, plain black, made from borametz leaf, he imagined. The individual plate armour was different, not quite as sophisticated as that which Amphinomus wore, but serviceable nonetheless. What he would have given for his old Destroyer armour, he thought.

Strapping the breastplate and grieves on, adjusting the gauntlets and pauldron, he at last came to the heavy belt, distinct from the rest of the hand-me-down armour the robant had left, its buckle carved from a substance that appeared to be ice, its touch just as cold. Cautiously, he strapped it on, feeling the weight of it, a mechanism within which he could not yet fathom, could not understand, yet at the same time was familiar.

Zackery Masayoshi Orion had grown up watching the armoured hero tournaments, had been a child watching with wide eyes as he saw Nero Samson take the championship belt all those years ago. He prided himself on knowing the kind of technology behind such armour, and whatever this new device was, he knew that somehow it contained within it the secret to a second, hidden armour form.

Securing the device, he wondered idly if Amphinomus had a similar component to their belt, and, if so, what the meaning was in his being handed such a belt. Surely he was a prisoner of sorts, therefore what was the other's angle, why had they armed him?

He shook his head, crossing the room and thumbing the door release. There was no point in dwelling on such things, not now when there were so many other questions he could be asking. With determination, he strode down the narrow corridor towards the cockpit, finding the robant and the pilot sat before a large bank of instruments and a screen filled with stars.

Jesus, he thought, the realisation suddenly dawning on him that he was in space.

"See you freshened up then?" Amphinomus said, glancing over their shoulder and smiling. "Looks like you scrubbed up well too."

"Whatever," Zack growled.

"Not long until we're there," the other smirked, returning to the ship's control yoke, "assuming nothing goes wrong that is."

"Don't say that," Zack said, sitting down behind the two in the cockpit's extra seat.

"Why's that?" Amphinomus asked.

A shriek resounded from the control board, a red light flashing above the view-screen.

"Because whenever someone says that," Zackery Orion said, "it means something's going to go wrong."

x

"It's time," she announced, and he could sense the mischief in her voice.

For a long moment, he did not look up, his head bowed in meditation, the helm of his armour resting upon the altar before him. It had been but a brief while for Zackery Orion, and yet for him it had been decades, an entire lifetime lived out in the solitude of the dead moon circling the dead world.

Solitude, he thought, _almost_ solitude. There were two others here, had been two others here; the boy he once was, the child who still believed his sister had been wronged by an evil presence, the boy who still believed he had a sister—and his tutor, his teacher, his mentor, that fearful creature with her multitudinous faces.

"I'm not sure I can do this," he said softly, not looking up at her.

"You don't have a choice," she purred playfully behind him, "after all, what kind of author would I be if I left loose ends dangling?"

Slowly, he rose from where he knelt before the altar, turning slowly to look at her in her current guise, a young man in his early 20s, black baseball boots, hair the colour of sand, a perennial smile etched across his face.

He was unhappy when she did this, this assumption of forms, childlike and dissonant, that did not accurately convey the full horror of the truth about her.

"I will do what must be done then," he said begrudgingly.

She smiled deviously out from behind the boy's face.

"Again, you don't have much of a choice," she said with glee.

Standing before her, his dark hair now shot through with strands of grey, Joshua McClain nodded.

"I know."

Her borrowed face creased in a wicked smile, and she took a step forward, black Converse scuffing the smooth floor of that outpost on Rhea he had known so well these good many years. Gently, she reached up, placing her hands upon the breastplate of his benighted, black armour.

"You've been a good student, Josh," she purred the words from between her boyish lips. "I knew you were a keeper the moment I set eyes on you."

"I won't kill Zackery," he said firmly, trying to retain his poise, his dignity.

She pulled back, looking aghast at him.

"Oh, my dear boy, I don't want you to kill him, perish the thought." Her smile widened. "I just want you to stop him from killing you."

x

The ship trembled, sparks flying in the narrow corridor behind them as another blast of energy slammed into the side of the vessel.

"What the hell are you people doing?" Zack shouted. "I thought you were bounty hunters, I thought you were used to this shit?"

"Statement: The boy has little patience," Vicious #349904 remarked coolly.

Distractedly, Amphinomus turned and glowered at him, their expression severe.

"You're not worth so much to us that we're above dumping you out of the airlock, boy," they snarled before turning back to the console.

Zack leant back in his seat and folded his arms.

"What the hell good was rescuing me if you're only going to get us all blown up during the escape?" he murmured.

"Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy!" Amphinomus shouted, jerking the control yoke back and flicking a switch overhead.

The vessel shuddered, and above them, two further craft overshot, triangular and ugly, the kind of thing Zack would expect from an aircraft design, not an alien space craft.

"Warning: Two Ark Fighters coming in—"

"I can see them," Amphinomus bellowed.

The vessel trembled once more, a groaning sound echoing through the belly of the aged freighter.

"What was that?" Zack demanded.

Amphinomus and Vicious exchanged glances.

"Statement: We are being boarded," the robant warned.

x

In the distance above the moon hung the dead cosmos, the slow failure of stars barely illuminating worlds that had long since grown cold. He tried not to think about it, tried not to consider all the loss, all the sorrow that filled his heart when he looked at the sky.

So many people, Joshua McClain thought. So many people he had known, so many people he had lost. In those early days, he had told himself to be strong, had warned himself against displaying emotion, displaying weakness, especially before a creature such as Nimue. The years had passed, time had continued to crawl forward, and he had carried that pain in his chest for so long without being able to find the words for it, without being able to explain what such a loss had meant to him—and then had come the young man, the boy he had been, consumed by that same grief, that same sorrow, and, in his own way, Josh had tried to make peace with it, had tried to become the man whom such a boy could respect, a man who he could be proud to be once he understood the terrible trick that Nimue had played upon the world.

Healing took time, he had heard, but such sentiments had been difficult to understand when he had been a young man, only time had given him the knowledge to process such pain.

Sadly, a smile formed upon his lips. If such a thing had been said to him when young, if he had heard that sentiment then, he would have rallied against it, would have turned his anger towards any who attempted to placate him, raised his fists, offered sharp words. Yet it was true, though he did not wish to accept it. Time healed, and whilst the pain did not go away fully, it became easier. He kept those he had lost in his heart, kept their memories bright in his recollection, but he also honoured them daily with the way he lived his life, with the decisions he made; with his kindness, his strength, his compassion. Even here, on the dead moon of Rhea at the end of all time, the Authoress could not take that away from him.

What would Zack be like now, he asked himself. Would he still be the boy who had so fallen afoul of Nimue's manipulation, or would he too have grown to understand what it was that had happened in that dream of a world, that cruel fantasy imagined into existence by its fickle mistress?

It didn't matter, he supposed, it didn't matter if he understood what had been done to them, or if he hated Josh for what had happened; at least it would be a connexion with someone real, someone honest, someone who had shared the same experiences as he had. And then, then they would be able to progress, he thought, to start the story anew, to look at the future, instead of dwelling upon the past.

He nodded to himself, turning away from the vast horizon, lifting the helm he held in his hands and hiding his face once more.

Time heals, he told himself again, and even though he did not fully believe it, not even now, he desperately wanted to.

x

Jim Manzarek hated jobs like this, he thought to himself with displeasure, hefting the weight of his pulse rifle in his gloved hands, feeling the slow, heavy beat of his heart within his chest as they waited for the machine to burn through the cargo bay doors. He gestured hastily to his team of four robants, tall and gaunt, skeletal almost, constructed out of a far too familiar and far too tarnished metal drenched in matte white paint, turning to face the door again as the machine burnt its way through the armour plating.

When Augenschild, the international peacekeeping force he founded with support from the UN, had fallen, Manzarek had gone to ground, taking whatever jobs he could find that might make use of his unique set of skills, born again as Danger Daddy, taking any kind of payment that would aide him in his one-man crusade against those who had brought Augenschild down. Working jobs like this was his way of life now, he told himself, no matter how much he disliked it.

The machine before him, a squat little droid programmed solely for getting into places it shouldn't—something between a Swiss army knife and a Roomba—finally completed its work and the cargo bay doors of the vessel caved in. With a bleep-bloop, it turned, making its way back towards their own craft, and then abruptly exploded in a shower of sparks and light as the occupants of the craft they had hijacked opened fire.

"Damn it," Manzarek growled to himself, and thought again to himself that if he hated jobs like this, then 90 per cent of that came from his dislike of being shot at.

"Statement: You are outnumbered. Throw down your weapons and surrender," the first of his robants stated, moments before its head exploded and its shuddering white frame toppled backwards into the corridor between ships.

"Statement: You have underestimated our defensive capabilities," a voice called back from within the hijacked vessel.

Great, Manzarek thought, just what he needed, another robant on the enemy team.

"This will go a lot easier for you if you just come quietly," he shouted to the inhabitants of the vessel, even though he knew it would make no difference.

Sure enough, a flash of sparks exploded against the doorframe as someone within took aim and fired in the general direction of where they hoped he was. Manzarek had no time for kids trying to let lucky, punks who couldn't evaluate the situation properly.

"If you didn't want conflict," a voice called back angrily, "then you shouldn't have boarded us."

Manzarek grunted, acknowledging the truth of the matter, whilst lowering his attack visor.

"That's not how this works, punk," he growled back, "people in your profession aren't exactly considered trustworthy."

Another angry flash exploded again above his head.

"And what about _your_ profession?" the voice called back.

Manzarek tapped a button on the side of the steel visor he wore and nodded at the team of remaining robants. Instantly, they broke cover together, his visor locking onto each of the three targets in the cramped cockpit and his pulse rifle biting out three perfect shots, incapacitating each of them in moments, each of them debilitated by stuns—'_crowd control_,' as the daughter of an old friend had once called it.

He watched as each of them slumped down behind the chairs, and he lifted his visor up smugly, his robant clean-up team moving in to apprehend the fallen crew of the vessel.

"I've still got it," he murmured to himself, more out of relief than anything else.

* * *

**A/N: Zackery Masayoshi Orion created by Lewamus Prime 2019** ~ u/6878339

**Josh McClain created by dannyrockon122** ~ u/5185539


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